Kei Nishikori says he has “no goals” for his comeback, but the 33-year-old looked like his old self in Atlanta

“No goals.”

That’s what Kei Nishikori said when he was asked on Tuesday about what he hopes to achieve with his 2023 season. He’s not going to put pressure on himself to do anything other than play each match as well as he can.

It’s hard to fault him. Nishikori had just finished his first ATP-level contest since 2021, at the Atlanta Open, and it had been every bit as tough as he likely expected it to be. The temperature was 90 degrees, the humidity was in the 60s, and there wasn’t a hint of wind in the arena. His opponent, Jordan Thompson, made him work for everything. And for some reason Nishikori was dressed in a forest-green kit, complete with baseball cap, that looked like a magnet for the unrelenting sun. By the second game, his shirt was soaked; by the seventh game, he had changed into a new one.

“Not an easy first round against Jordan,” Nishikori said of the Australian, who gave Novak Djokovic a push at Wimbledon two weeks ago. “He’s very steady from the baseline. He doesn’t miss much and I have to be aggressive all the time.”

The match had all the makings of a reality check for Nishikori, who underwent hip surgery in early 2022 and has been forced to postpone his return more than once this season. Originally scheduled to start in Delray Beach in February, he debuted at a Challenger in Puerto Rico last month. Wonder of wonders, he won five straight matches for the title, and dropped just one set along the way.

Nishikori beat the odds again on Tuesday, edging Thompson, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (5), in two-and-a-half brutal hours. He looked like he had hardly missed a week, and quickly reminded everyone that he had been a Top 5 player at his peak.

He hit his jumping two-handed backhand. He moved Thompson around with his forehand and finished points with his drop shot. He was 16 of 17 at net, and he wasn’t broken once, despite not hitting a single ace. He won the points he needed the most; from 4-5 down in the second-set tiebreaker, he won three straight for the match—the rally at 5-5 was an absolute lung-buster. Every five minutes or so, the TV commentators remarked that he was “exceeding their expectations.”

Nishikori himself sounded a little surprised by his level, too.

“I played good, actually,” he said. “I'm quite happy the way I played today. There were some moments that I should have stepped up a little more. But with these tough conditions I’m happy to win in two sets.”

The oft-injured Nishikori is 33 now, and he admits that he considered retiring, and found the prospect of another arduous comeback daunting. He had to have the bones in his hip narrowed to relieve the pain. He’s obviously off to a good start, but how much of an impact can he make in what has to feel like his second career?

The headlines tell us that it’s possible to be successful for much longer in men’s tennis these days. Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal have won majors at 36, and Roger Federer nearly won one at 37. But for anyone other than the Big 3, it’s still not easy. Andy Murray, 36, has had multiple hip surgeries himself, and while he has won his share of dramatic matches since, he has needed a ton of wild cards to do it. Dominic Thiem, 29, is two years into his own comeback, and is currently ranked 112th. Stan Wawrinka is still going at 38, but is ranked 72nd and is no longer a Grand Slam threat.

I played good, actually. Kei Nishikori

The fundamentals are there for Nishikori to do better than that. His ball-striking was always some of the cleanest in the sport, and it appeared to be intact on Tuesday. The speed, we’ll have to see about, but he defended well and pounced on his opportunities against Thompson—he even had enough energy to run to the net for the handshake. But as he said, there are no goals for him yet.

“I’ll try to play one match at a time, and try to win this type of tough, tough match,” Nishikori said. “I just need more confidence to play with top players.”

The conditions may be difficult in Atlanta, but it’s a fitting place for Nishikori to return. He’s the first Asian man to reach a Grand Slam singles final, and the draw this week features several younger players from that continent: No. 4 seed Yoshihito Nishioka, China’s Wu Yibing and Juncheng Shang, as well as California’s Brandon Nakashima. Nishikori, the OG among them, will face the 18-year-old Juncheng Shang on Thursday.

“It was pretty good,” Nishikori, modest as ever, said in summation.