Big in Japan

Kei Nishikori may be on the slight side among today’s often towering tennis players—6’6” Marin Cilic, who beat Nishikori in the U.S. Open final, had him by a good eight inches—but he is, as the popular song by Alphaville goes, “Big in Japan.”

Small wonder. Nishikori is a native of Shimane, Japan. He’s ranked No. 7 in the world, a standing no other Asian man has reached. He was the first Asian man to win the most prestigious and long-lived of Asian tournaments, the (Rakuten) Japan Open. He’s the first Asian man to reach a Grand Slam final (see above).

Nishimania is running rampant in his native land. Yesterday, Nishikori played his first match at this year’s Japan Open, and he sold out the Ariake Colosseum. Ten thousand fans delighted in the sight of their national hero pummeling Ivan Dodig, 6-3, 6-4, in a mere 85 minutes.

But this isn’t how the script was written.

For the past few years in tennis, it’s been all about China. The theme had been gathering momentum for some time, and it surfaced in a big way thanks to the combination of two factors: the liberalization of China’s once staunchly collectivist society coupled with the economic boom it unleashed, and the emergence of Li Na as a Grand Slam contender and, finally, champion.

Meanwhile, the pro game across its long-time range was stagnant at best. This led administrators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers to look to China, with its flourishing economy and emerging, status-conscious middle-class, for salvation. In that, the tennis folks were much like 19th-century robber-barons who made their fortunes during the opening up of the American west.

China obliged. The Chinese now are the hosts of an array of ATP and WTA tournaments, some of them going on as you read this. Asia, in tennis, has become synonymous with “China.”

Lost in the shuffle? Japan.

But consider this. Japan has been a presence in pro tennis since the Japan Open joined the Commercial Union Assurance Grand Prix (the forerunner to the ATP World Tour) in 1972, just the fifth year of Open tennis. The WTA has the Toray Pan Pacific Open, which dates back to 1984. Both of those significant events are still fixtures on the calendar, as are a number of other events in Japan. Still others have come and gone. As well, back in the 1970s and 80s, every elite player, including Bjorn Borg and Chris Evert, made room on their calendar for an annual, lucrative exhibition swing through Japan.

Would you like your history with a little more resonance? The very first year-end championships was the 1970 Pepsi-Cola Masters. Unfortunately, the annual playoff amongst the top ATP performers of the year has gone through as many name changes as Nick Bollettieri has gone through wives. But the Pepsi Masters of 1970 is the granddaddy of them all. The winner, in case you were wondering, was Stan Smith. He also hoisted the doubles trophy, with the late Arthur Ashe.

Japan’s flesh-and-blood contribution didn’t begin with Nishikori, either. But before we get into that, note that while China has given us Li, it has yet to deliver a reliable, world-class male player. One factor that stands out is that Nishikori spent all of his developmental years at the IMG Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy, which is as much of a home to him now as is Shimane. The Chinese, by contrast, have always sought to control and manage their domestic players.

Japan currently has three men who either qualify for main draw Grand Slam placement or are right on the cusp (the cut off, all other things being equal, is No. 104). Those men are Nishikori, No. 103 Tatsuma Ito, and No. 109 Go Soeda. China has no male players in that category.

Among the women, China has five women ranked in the Top 108, including the just-retired Li. Japan has just three: Kurumi Nara (No. 37), Misaki Doi (No. 91) and the ageless 44-year-old Kimiko Date-Krumm (No. 101). In her former life—before she took a sabbatical that lasted nearly 12 years—Date-Krumm was ranked as high as No. 4, in 1995.

Japan has always been a factor in global tennis, even before Nishikori’s immediate Open-era predecessor, Shuzo Matsuoka. One of the most well-liked players on the tour during his heyday in the early 1990s, Matsuoka reached a career-high singles ranking of No. 46.

Before Nishikori, the most successful Japanese male in Grand Slam competition was Jiro Sato. He was born in January 1908 and died tragically at the age of 26, by which time he had played in nine Grand Slam singles events, reaching the semifinals at five of them. He upset defending champion Sidney Wood at Wimbledon in 1932, and the following year he beat Fred Perry at the French Open—a feat that helped him earn accolades as (in the eyes of one expert) the No. 3 player in the world for that year. His story is worth telling, even in abbreviated form.

On April 4, 1934, Sato (left in photo, from Wikimedia Commons) was aboard the N.Y.K. Hakone Maru crossing the Strait of Malacca en route to Europe for a Davis Cup tie against Australia. It was a trip he didn’t want to make, for he felt exhausted. Sato had hoped to take off the entire year following his exploits of 1933—achievements that had made him a national hero, with all that entailed. But he was ordered to play on without respite by the Japanese Lawn Tennis Federation.

On the day in question, Sato complained of stomach pains and had no appetite. In Singapore, he left the ship in order to be examined by a doctor. Sato was pronounced healthy; if he had a problem, it most likely was psychological. Later that day, the Japanese Davis Cup team was given a banquet hosted by the Japanese counsel to Singapore. Meanwhile, when word of Sato’s puzzling condition reached the JLTA, representatives fired off a cable insisting that Sato and his teammates proceed as planned with the voyage.

At 11:30 p.m. the following evening, Sato was reported missing by his teammate and friend, Jiro Yamagishi. Soon, crew and friends found two suicide notes, one an apology addressed to his teammates, the other an apology to the ship’s captain for causing an “inconvenience.”

Sato’s fiance later insisted that it was the unyielding attitude of the JLTA that led to her beloved’s despair and, ultimately, suicide. Sato feared that in his exhausted state he could bring no further glory to Japan. Bunny Austin, who defeated Sato in the Wimbledon semifinals of 1932, suggested that Sato was so cheerful a man that “he gave the impression that he would be the last man on earth to come to such an end.”

As far as cautionary tales go, the shelf-life of that one is long gone. As Nishikori can attest, it’s a lot less dangerous these days to be big in Japan.