Groundbreaking tennis star Kei Nishikori was the first male Japanese player to reach the Top 5 in the ATP World Rankings for nearly 80 years, and the first of the Open Era. He was also the first male player representing any Asian country to reach a Grand Slam final (at the 2014 US Open). He has also reached nine other Grand Slam quarter-finals and won an Olympic bronze medal (Japan’s first tennis medal in nearly a century) on top of 13 ATP Finals and 11 Challenger and Futures titles. 15 years into his playing career, he is still ranked as one of the 50 best male players in the world.

Nishikori began playing tennis when he was five years old. By the time he turned 12, he’d won the All Japan Tennis Championship for Kids. When he was 14, he relocated to Florida to train at the world-famous IMG Academy (also responsible for training the likes of the Williams sisters, Boris Becker, Monica Seles, Pete Sampras, and many more). He entered his first junior Grand Slam in 2005 and won the doubles tournament at the 2006 Junior French Open as well as making the quarter-finals in the singles tournament.

Nishikori’s singles career built steadily until he broke through in 2014 with his first Masters 1000 tournament final and his historic appearance in the final of the US Open – the first Japanese player to ever achieve such a feat. He spent four of the next five years in the Top 10 of the ATP World Rankings, cementing his reputation as the most successful Asian player since the 1930s.