Kei Nishikori’s season has suffered an early blow after he announced that he will miss the first tournament of the season at the Brisbane International.
The Japanese star was training in Florida in hope that he would compete at the Brisbane International in ten days time in preparation for the Australian Open.
However it seems that he has still not recovered from the wrist injury that he suffered in August, which required surgery and resulted in his 2017 season ending.
Nishikori released the following statement regarding his withdrawal, “I am so disappointed to miss Brisbane this year. For years it’s been my first tournament of the season and I always feel so at home there. I really look forward to going there in the future.”
Brisbane is a tournament where Nishikori thrives at, having reached three Semi-Finals and in 2017 reached the final where he lost to Grigor Dimitrov in a tight three set battle.
Nishikori will have to wait a bit longer to make his comeback as he hopes to compete at the Sydney International and then at the Australian Open in consecutive weeks.
However Brisbane will still have a star-studded field which includes Rafael Nadal, Milos Raonic, Andy Murray, Nick Kyrgios and defending champion Grigor Dimitrov.
The Brisbane International starts on the 31st of December.
