RIO DE JANEIRO: Japanese fourth seed Kei Nishikori reached the Olympic tennis second round Saturday but jet-lagged Agnieszka Radwanska crashed out, completing her miserable and exhausting first week in Rio.
Nishikori, a quarter-finalist in 2012, breezed past Spanish left-hander Albert Ramos-Vinolas, 6-2, 6-4, in just 79 minutes. Ramos-Vinolas, who made the French Open quarter-finals this year, realised it was not to be his day in the second game of the second set.
Nishikori allowed his racquet to fly from his hand on service but he scrambled to retrieve it before unleashing a winner past the bemused Spaniard.
“Usually I would give up the point when I lose the racquet but not this time,” said Nishikori, who arrived in Rio having finished runner-up to world number one Novak Djokovic in Toronto last week. “I saw that I had a chance to win the point, so I hung in there.”
Nishikori next plays Australia’s John Millman, who became the first player to clinch a ‘double bagel’ — 6-0, 6-0 — in Games history. The 27-year-old Millman swept past Ricardas Berankis in just 50 minutes, making it a miserable summer for the Lithuanian. At Wimbledon, Berankis was knocked out in the first round by Britain’s world number 772 Marcus Willis, a club professional. “I’m not really sure that’s sunk in,” said Millman. “To be put in the record books is ridiculous.”
