Kei Nishikori confirms comeback as he heads to Puerto Rico Challenger

Kei Nishikori is on his way to Puerto Rico where he'll play a challenger event as he works his way to a comeback to tennis, after missing a very long time.

Kei Nishikori is finally going to make his comeback at a challenger event in Puerto Rico next week. The Japanese player suffered from injuries for much of his career and a surgery left him with a lengthy recovery time. It's been a challenging time for him as he struggled with the recovery that ultimately took much longer than he had hoped it would.

The comeback was supposed to happen much earlier this year but then he pushed him back for weeks at a time. Finally, he provided an update recently explaining that he should make a comeback in either Texas, Little Rock or Puerto Rico. Little Rock came and went without him as did the challenger in Texas this week.

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His recent update ultimately named the Puerto Rico one as the target one:

"My training is going well. I am increasing my hitting both in timing and intensity. I have decided with my team however that the Little Rock and Tyler challengers are coming too fast and I will have to cancel them. The goal is to start in Palmas del Mar."

Comeback on

We're only one day away from the start of the Puerto Rico Challenger and another update from Nishikori arrived on social media. He posted a photo on Instagram showing himself at the airport ready to board a flight to Puerto Rico. He's coming back next week and it will be the first time he's going to play tennis competitively since October of 2021. It's been well over a year since the 33-year-old played.

The caption of the photo said:

"Excited! On the way to Puerto Rico!"

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