Kei Nishikori faces a tricky opening match on Tuesday in San Jose against Jan Hajek

Kei Nishikori has continued his climb back up the world rankings this season with decent runs in Chennai and the Australian Open. He now enters the SAP Open as the No. 8 seed , and will be hoping to accelerate his return towards the top fifty. His first match will be against Jan Hajek, who will be eager to upset the odds against the Japanese youngster.

Hajek is searching for his first win of the season here. First round defeats in Zagreb and at the Australian Open caused Hajek to slip outside of the top hundred, and he needs to get a few wins under his belt in order to stand a chance of qualifying for the French Open and Wimbledon. He faces a real challenge here, and could easily leave this tournament with a 0-3 season record unless he produces one of his better performances on Tuesday.

These two players have never met previously in ATP World Tour competition. Whilst this will cloud predictions a little, Nishikori appears to be the man in form, and should be able to progress to round two.