Nishikori and Raonic storm into Miami Open R3

Kei Nishikori and Milos Raonic are through to the Miami Open R3 following strong victories on Friday.

The Japanese player played Aljaz Bedene once more after defeating him in Dubai not long ago. The match today was similar to that but Nishikori had a bit more trouble today. That was mostly due to his own poor play which was quite bad early on. Even so, he was able to hold his won during that bad stretch until he lost his serve at 5-5.

He would break Bedene right back to force a tiebreak where he would play some amazing rallies to take a 6-3 lead. He would squander 3 sets points in a row before converting his 4th to take it 8-6. In the 2nd set, he was plagued by more of the same trailing 2-4 at one point before making it 4-4.

After an MTO by Bedene Nishikori was out of rhythm and the Slovene player won the 2nd set 7-5. The 3rd set was mostly dominated by strong play when serving by both players. Nishikori was more concrete but it was not until late in the set that found a way through. He would go on to win the final set 6-4 to close out the match.

Joining him in the 3rd round will be Milos Raonic who had one of his most dominant displays as of late. The Canadian played against Jordan Thompson from Australia and crushed him 6-2 6-1. The match lasted only 60 minutes as Milos dominated points from the baseline hitting winner after winner.

He hit 14 aces to only 2 double faults en route to the quick victory. It was a much better performance than in Acapulco and it will be interesting to see whether he can keep up that rhythm going forward.