

What Time Will Shang Juncheng Play Against Kei Nishikori?
Juncheng and Nishikori are on the Day 2 Schedule at Chengdu Open 2024 on Thursday 19 September 2024. Lets breakdown the career, past stats and recent form of these players and predict who will get the victory.
Who Will Win In This Head-To-Head?
Shang Juncheng and Kei Nishikori have faced each other once before, with Nishikori leading their head-to-head record 1-0. The previous encounter took place in Atlanta, USA, on a hard court in the Round of 16, where Nishikori won with a score of 6-4, 7-6(3).
Shang Juncheng is a 19-year-old player from China, currently ranked 67th in the world. He reached a career-high ranking of 66th in September 2024. In the same year, he achieved significant victories over players ranked 16th and 14th, enabling him to reach his first and second ATP Tour semifinals in Hong Kong and Atlanta, respectively. He also reached the third round of a Grand Slam for the first time at the 2024 Australian Open, becoming the first Chinese man to accomplish this feat in the Open Era. Shang made his ATP Tour debut in 2022 as a wildcard participant in Rio de Janeiro and earned his first tour-level win in the 2023 Australian Open. He has a record of 37 wins and 27 losses on the ATP Challenger Tour, including his first title in Lexington in 2022. Shang will be making his debut at the Sichuan International Tennis Center in Chengdu, China.
Some interesting facts about Shang Juncheng include being the first Chinese teenager to break into the Top 100 in the PIF ATP Rankings history in May 2024 and his nickname “Jerry,” inspired by a cartoon character from his
favorite childhood show. He has also won his last six tour-level opening-round matches since the start of the grass season and aims to join Zhang as the second Chinese player with 20 tour-level wins in a single season.
On the other hand, Kei Nishikori, representing Japan, is 34 years old and currently ranked 201st in the world. He reached his career-high ranking of 4th in 2015 and is considered the top Asian men’s player in history. Nishikori’s most notable accomplishment was reaching the final of the US Open in 2014, becoming the first Asian Grand Slam men’s singles finalist after defeating No. 1 ranked Djokovic. He has won 12 ATP Tour titles, including his first at the age of 18 in Delray Beach in 2008, making him the youngest champion on the tour since Hewitt in 1998. Nishikori has also achieved success in various tournaments, winning six ATP 500 titles, reaching four ATP Masters 1000 finals, qualifying for the Nitto ATP Finals four times, and winning a bronze medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics. He holds the highest winning percentage among active players in deciding sets. Notably, the current Chengdu tournament marks Nishikori’s first appearance in China since the 2018 ATP Masters 1000 Shanghai, and his first match in Asia since the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, where he represented Japan in the Davis Cup and helped defeat Colombia.
My Conclusion / Prediction:
My pick is that Juncheng will win.
Matchstat.com has an Artificial Intelligence (Ai) prediction model that is trained on all professional ATP and WTA past matches.
To find out who our model thinks will win for Shang Juncheng vs Kei Nishikori, have a look at the prediction here:
Matchstat.com Shang Juncheng vs Kei Nishikori prediction.