Arguably Japan’s best ever men’s tennis player, Kei Nishikori is a former Grand Slam finalist and possesses a career-high ranking of fourth in the world. And if you are looking to find out which racquet does Nishikori use at the moment, here’s all of that information.
Nishikori has made it to the quarterfinal of all Grand Slam tournaments, and even proceeded on to the semifinal – and then the final – at the 2014 US Open. There he lost to Marin Cilic in the title-decider but by getting that far became the first ever Asian male player to make it to a Grand Slam final.
Even more interestingly, Nishikori was a shock winner over Rafael Nadal at the Rio Olympics in 2016, clinching the bronze medal for his country in the process.
In more recent times, injuries have played a part in Nishikori’s fall in the rankings but for someone who has consistently been a part of the top 20 on the ATP Tour, it would be must to check which tennis racquet does Nishikori use.
One of Nishikori’s biggest problems could be his height and build, which is lesser than a lot of the players on the circuit. That does make it tougher for him to play against players from USA and Europe and in order to remain competitive, the Japanese player has had to adapt in multiple ways.
Choosing a tennis racquet which suits these needs becomes a must for Nishikori, but what makes this interesting is a lot of players at lower levels of playing tennis have a build which is not so different from him. Which is why, there is always that clamour to use the kind of racquet which Nishikori is also using.
So, Which is Kei Nishikori’s Racquet?
Nishikori has adopted the Wilson nTour 95 as the racquet to go with at the highest level despite having painted it like it’s the Wilson Ultra 95 Countervail for sponsorship reasons.
Let’s talk about the specifications of the Wilson Ultra 95 for starters, a tennis racquet which Nishikori endorses. Its technical specifications are mentioned below.
- Length: 27.25 in
- Head Size: 95 sq in
- Weight: 11.5 oz
- Balance Point: 13.18 in
- Construction: 22mm/22mm/22mm
- Composition: Countervail/Graphite
- String Pattern: 16 Mains / 20 Crosses
The racquet Nishikori, however, uses has slightly different specs from the aforementioned.
As mentioned earlier, Nishikori has opted for a racquet which is slightly longer to compensate for lower reach. It’s about 0.5 inches longer which accounts for about 20 gram in extra weight on his racquet.
Other than the racquet itself, its strings are a valuable aspect of any player’s decision-making around the equipment and Nishikori uses a hybrid of Natural Gut 16 and Luxilon Element string.
Obviously if you are looking to buy a racquet not too different from Nishikori’s – because it’s improbable you will get the same specs as his tennis racquet – then you could look to go for the Wilson Ultra 95 Countervail.
The Ultra 95 Countervail can be bought from a plethora of stores, online and through brick and mortar stores, across the world and the differences with Nishikori’s racquets are a bare minimum.