Nishioka rallies to reach Delray Beach final
MIAMI: Unseeded Yoshihito Nishioka of Japan rallied for a 1-6, 6-4, 6-0 victory over sixth-seeded Ugo Humbert Saturday to reach the ATP Delray Beach final. Nishioka, apparently refreshed by a second rain delay, roared through the final set to advance to his second career final.
He won his only prior title match at Shenzhen in 2018. a he’ll face either second-seeded Milos Raonic of Canada or fourth-seeded American Reilly Opelka for the trophy. The Raonic-Opelka semi-final was moved to yesterday morning because of rain.
Nishioka, 24 and ranked 63rd in the world, is already projected to surpass his career-best ranking of 58 tomorrow. After reaching that mark in March of 2017 Nishioka tore a left knee ligament and dropped as low as 380th in the world in April 2018 before starting to climb his way back.
Nishioka, who rallied to beat American Brandon Nakashima in the quarter-finals, saved six of eight break points he faced and won 27 of 37 points in the deciding set to beat the in-form Frenchman, who triumphed in Auckland in January.
Meanwhile, world number four Dominic Thiem of Austria missed a chance to reach a career-best third in the ATP rankings with a Rio Open quarter-final loss Saturday to Italy’s Gianluca Mager.
Mager, a 128th-ranked qualifier playing in only his eighth career tour-level match, defeated 2017 Rio champion Thiem 7-6 (7/4), 7-5 in a match that was halted Friday by rain. Had Thiem reached the semi-finals in his 2020 clay-court debut, he would have overtaken Roger Federer for third in Monday’s ATP rankings. Thiem was down a set and a break when rain stopped the match Friday with Mager leading 7-6 (7/4), 2-1. Mager served for the match in the ninth game of the second set but Thiem broke to pull level at 5-5, only to have the Italian claim the final two games and the match after one hour and 55 minutes on the court.
Mager booked a semi-final date against 106th-ranked Hungarian lucky loser Attila Balazs, who outlasted 133rdranked Spanish qualifier Pedro Martinez 2-6, 6-4, 6-2 in another rain-hit quarter-final.
Saturday’s other semi-final pitted Chilean third seed Cristian Garin and fifth-seeded Borna Coric of Croatia, but rain again prevented those matches from being completed. When the semi-finals finally went on court late Saturday, Mager won the first set against Balazs 7-6 (7/4), and they were level at 3-3 when rain halted play again. Garin was up 6-4, 4-4 on Coric in their match, with both to resume later. — AFP