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Nishikori's success a win for sports

Ross DunbarSeptember 7, 2014

Japanese 24-year-old Kei Nikishori played brilliantly to beat Novak Djokovic and become the man from his country to reach a major tennis final. It was unexpected - and that's the true reason why we're obsessed by sport.

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Nishikori wins US Open Semi
Image: Matthew Stockman/Getty Images

It seemed like a foregone conclusion: Roger Federer and Nojak Djokovic would step out at the Arthur Ashe stadium in Flushing Meadows, New York to meet for the 13th time at a Grand Slam event.

After all, in the last 100 years, only two Grand Slam finals have featured two competitors outside of tennis' top 10 rankings. The last Grand Slam final without Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic or Andy Murray was almost a decade ago, at the Australian Open in 2005.

But sports has a way of shocking us when we least expect it. Croat Marin Cilic swaggered past Federer, hunting for his 18th Grand Slam title, in straight sets, while Kei Nishikori became the first man from Asia to reach a Grand Slam final.

Japanese fans in Nishikori's home town Matsue stayed up to the early hours of the morning to watch the 24-year-old defeat Djokovic 6-4, 1-6, 7-6, 6-3. Even before Saturday's stunning success, he was worthy of the front pages in his homeland just for reacing the semifinals.

Nishikori can't believe his win
A true head-scratcher: Nishikori can hardly believe his achievementImage: Getty Images/J. Finney

Nishikori encapsulates 'Yamato damashii' - in other words, the Japanese fighting spirit - with energy, doggedness and determination. And that's good new for men's tennis - a sport that is too often reduced solely to the "Big Four."

The beauty of sports

Why do we watch sports? It's the tales of struggle and success, failure and triumph; the meritocracy, or the democracy, and those engrossing moments of nail-biting drama between athletes at the highest level. It's the unpredictability, the unknowability of the final outcome, that drives the true spirit of sport.

Football, as high-quality and entertaining as it can be, is often unfairly slanted toward the elite. Real Madrid's Champions League success last season and their stockpiling of the best players highlight the financial disparity between them and their rivals. The pinnacle of European football is generally a closed shop.

The formula is simple for team sports - the more money at your disposal; the higher chance of winning.

When it comes to individual events, however, money doesn't talk in the same way. A game like tennis athlete-against-athlete, two humans pitting their athletic capacity against each other. It's the true essence of sport, emanating from times when sport's meaning lay closer to combat than art.

Novak Djokovic
Djokovic has proven before that he can overcome adversityImage: Getty Images

Previous rises in tennis

The success of the underdog is nothing new. Since the aforementioned 2005 Australian Open final, played between Marat Safin and Lleyton Hewitt, several rookie players have fought their way to the top.

A few months later at the French Open in 2005, Argentine Mariano Puerta reached his one and only Grand Slam final, losing to Nadal. There were fledging final appearances for Chilean Fernando Gonzalez - seeded 10th when facing Federer at the Australian Open - Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis and Swede Robin Söderling who progressed to the 2009 French Open Final.

Talk of a change of the old guard in Tennis is certainly premature. It's highly unlikely that the younger stars, like Djokovic or Murray will see their performance decline in the near future. If anything, the peaking of the Serb or the Scot is still to come.

But the rise of Nishikori from near obscurity, the manner in which he battled toe-to-toe with Djokovic to emerge as the winner is a message to the elite of tennis: the benchmark might be set, but the quality across the board is improving. We're seeing faster, stronger and smarter athletes than ever before

Just when we think sports is becoming predictable, the old dog continues to come up with more-and-more inspiring narratives of unexpected success.