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Reuters

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Reuters

Former World No.4 Kei Nishikori opened his Wimbledon campaign with a takedown of promising Australian Alexei Popyrin in straight sets.

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Though he brought up his 100th win in Grand Slam tennis, he didn?t appear too pleased with his performance.

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Kei Nishikori won his Round 1 game against Alexei Popyrin

While most players would settle for a winning score line of 6-4, 6-4- 6-4 in a Grand Slam opener, the veteran Japanese star seemed to hint that he expected better of himself against Popyrin.

A piece of statistics that the Japanese star might want to look at going into his second-round fixture is that he could convert only 3 of the 11 breakpoint opportunities that he created.

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That apart, there weren?t too many flaws in his game that showed up and might need fixing ahead of the next match.

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Asked to share his experience of winning the 100th Grand Slam match, which is considered a noteworthy achievement by a tennis pro, Nishikori flashed a broad smile, saying, ?Well…I?m happy…nothing in particular yeah??

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Nishikori lost in the last-16 at Halle

Nishikori came into All England on the back of a last-16 appearance at the Noventi Open in Halle, his only grass court tune-up event ahead of Wimbledon.

He opened his campaign against Ricardas Berankis of Lithuania but went down in a closely-fought round-of-16 tie against American Sebastian Korda.

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Nowhere near close to the level that took him to No.4 in singles, the Japanese star had a fairly average run by his standards on clay as well.

He opened the clay court swing with a round-of-16 finish at Barcelona Open.?

He crashed out at the third-round exit at Italian Open after losing to eventual champion Alexander Zverev.

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Nishikori took the first set off the German but Zverev came storming back to win the next two.

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Read More: Kei Nishikori Reveals Why He’s Inspired by Roger Federer

In his thirties now, Nishikori reached the fourth-round at Roland-Garros before coming up short against the German again in the battle for the quarter-finals.

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