Kei Nishikori overcame a number of mistakes on Wednesday to advance to the quarterfinals of the U.S. National Indoor Tennis Championships.
Nishikori, the top seed and defending champion, defeated Germany's Benjamin Becker 6-4, 6-4 in a match that saw eight service breaks to set up a quarterfinals matchup with Russia's Alex Bogomolov Jr.
"First of all, I won. In that sense it was good," said Nishikori, who is looking for his third career ATP title.
Nishikori's mistakes allowed him to be broken easily in the first set, but he repeatedly hung in and broke back. He found his shots and service game in the second set and the gap between the two players' became evident.
"It was unusual in that there were a lot of breaks," Nishikori said. "I'll want to be careful about that in my next match."