WASHINGTON: Japan’s Yoshihito Nishioka shocked eighth-ranked Andrey Rublev on Saturday to join Wimbledon runner-up Nick Kyrgios in reaching Sunday’s ATP and WTA Washington Open men’s final with straight-set triumphs.

Nishioka, a 96th-ranked lefthander, stunned top seed Rublev 6-3, 6-4 in 80 minutes to book his first ATP final since 2020 at Delray Beach.

Nishioka, who won his only ATP title in 2018 at Shenzhen, hadn’t won a tour-level match since March when the week began but has taken five this week and will rise to at least 54th in Monday’s world rankings.

He fired only 12 winners but took full advantage of Rublev’s 33 unforced errors and converted on 4-of-5 break points.

“I tried to be a little bit aggressive, because I knew Andrey was going to play aggressive,” Nishioka said. “I needed to play a little bit aggressive to him.”

Kyrgios is 3-0 against Nishioka, most recently winning in the third round of his 2019 Washington title run.

“We’ve played many times, but he beat me every time since 16 years old,” Nishioka said. “It’s really tough to play against him. He doesn’t have any pace. He just hits the ball so hard every time. Very tough to break his service games.

“The most important thing is I have to focus on my service games.”

AFP