Kei Nishikori said he will retire after this season, turning Monday evening’s Round 1 match at ATP Washington into a farewell stop in Washington, D.C. The former US Open runner-up and 12-time ATP Tour winner is set to face Juncheng Shang as one of the final chapters of a career that once took him to the top tier of the game.
The timing matters because ATP Washington opened the North American hard-court season on Monday, and Nishikori’s last appearance in the city was expected to pull for him from the stands. He won the event in 2015, a reminder that this is not just another first-round match for a player who has spent a great deal of time on the sidelines this season. For a former World No. 4, the stage is familiar. The circumstances are not.
That is also why the matchup is drawing attention beyond the retirement news. Nishikori enters as a decided underdog against Shang, even with the crowd behind him and with his past success in Washington on the line. The Play at FanDuel was Nishikori moneyline at +184, a number that reflects how much the betting market leans toward the 21-year-old opponent.
Shang brings his own backstory into the match, but it comes with a long interruption. He had been out of action since February, and a foot injury limited him to 14 matches in 2025. The result is that he has played only seven matches this year, a sharp break from a 2024 campaign that ended with an invite to the NextGen Finals. That leaves Nishikori facing a younger player whose résumé has been stalled, but not erased, by injury.
What comes next is simpler for Shang than for Nishikori. Monday evening is another first-round match for the 21-year-old. For Nishikori, it is part of a final season whose remaining matches are not yet clear, and that uncertainty is now part of the story of every court he steps onto.
