The 2015 World Tour Finals will get started on Sunday afternoon with Novak Djokovic in action. London’s top seed is kicking off his bid for a fourth straight title against Kei Nishikori.
Novak Djokovic and Kei Nishikori will be squaring off for the seventh time in their careers when they contest the first round-robin match at the World Tour Finals on Sunday afternoon.
Djokovic leads the head-to-head series 4-2 after prevailing 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 earlier this season on the clay courts of Rome. They have faced each other three times on indoor hard courts, including twice last fall. Djokovic, who lost to Nishikori indoors at the 2011 Basel event, got the job done 6-2, 6-3 in Paris and 6-1, 3-6, 6-0 at the year-end championship. Their most memorable encounter came in the 2014 U.S. Open semifinals, with Nishikori pulling off a 6-4, 1-6, 7-6(4), 6-3 upset en route to a runner-up finish.
Hoping to wrap up a positively dominant season in appropriate fashion, Djokovic is storming into London on a 22-match winning streak and with an overall record of 78-5 for the season. The Serb won three Grand Slams, six Masters 1000 titles, and a 500-pointer in Beijing. He is coming off a triumph in Paris, where the top seed ousted three fellow World Tour Finals competitors in the process (Tomas Berdych, Stan Wawrinka, and Andy Murray).
Nishikori has no such momentum heading into the last tournament of 2015. Although the Japanese star is an outstanding 53-14 for the year, he is 2-3 in his last five matches dating back to the Tokyo final (lost to Benoit Paire). Nishikori then dropped his second tilt in both Shanghai and Paris. At the latter event, he retired against Richard Gasquet due to a back problem while trailing 7-6(3), 4-1. The world No. 8 insisted it was a precautionary move, but it is always cause for concern when he is dealing with any kind of physical issue.
This is Nishikori’s second straight appearance in London, where he preceded his 2014 semifinal loss to Djokovic with a 2-1 round-robin record. Djokovic, meanwhile, is the three-time defending champion and has won four World Tour Finals overall. The world No. 1 is 14-0 at this tournament since losing to countryman Janko Tipsarevic back in 2011.
Pick: Djokovic in 2 losing 7 games or fewer
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