Antwerp Open: Kei Nishikori vs. Pablo Andujar 10/19/20 Tennis Prediction

Kei Nishikori makes his indoor hard court return in over a year as he meets Pablo Andujar in the first round of the 2020 Antwerp Open on Monday, October 19th 2020. Will Nishikori show us his amazing tennis, or will Andujar be able to take advantage of any potential rust in the Japenese’s game?

Pablo Andujar is not as good as he used to be in my opinion and he is slowly regressing down to a player who will not be able to win much on the ATP Tour and will probably have to focus the rest of his career on the challenger tour. Andujar, however, still has a good enough game to take it to players like Nishikori who might be a bit rustier than him. Andujar is going to have to play some superb tennis here in Antwerp in my opinion if he is to go anywhere here in Antwerp and in any other remaining tournament this year.

Kei Nishikori is slowly taking off the rust in his games this year on the ATP Tour since his return. Nishikori is definitely improving and we all know how good he is on indoor hard courts. I expect Nishikori will use this and next week as a preparation for the Paris Masters in November as he will want to show everyone that he can compete with the best in the world like he used to. Nishikori has got the game and the mentality to win big titles and I am sure that next year he will be back to his best.

This is going to be the sixth meeting between these two players and Kei Nishikori leads their head to head 4-1. They have not played in 5 years but the last and only time Andujar beat Nishikori was in 2013. I expect this to be a tight match because although Andujar is not as good as Nishikori, he can challenge him if he is rusty. However, at the end of the day, I believe that Nishikori is continuously improving and he will win this match to get some more minutes under his belt here in Antwerp.