Delray Beach International Tennis Championships

Nishikori beats Blake; Tipsarevic beats Kavcic

Blaz Kavcic after a tough point late in his match with Janko Tipsarevic.

By David Sedore, Palm Beach Business.com

DELRAY BEACH — Three years ago, James Blake lost to Kei Nishikori in the finals of the Delray Beach International Tennis Championships. Wednesday night, the two faced each other again with the same results.

Nishikori easily beat Blake 6-3, 6-4 to move to the next round in the ATP World Tour event. Blake, who ranked as high as fourth in the world in 2006, never really seemed in the match.

In the nightcap, sixth seed Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia beat Slovenian Blaz Kavcic 6-2, 6-7(8), 6-3, in one of the more entertaining matches of the tournament. Tipsarevic seemed poised to blow away the unseeded Kavcic, but the Slovenian who won a berth in the tournament in the qualifying rounds, battled back to force a third set that was characterized by long rallies and hard-fought games.

Both players were critical of the officiating during the match. Kavcic near the end of the match told the umpire simply, “I don’t believe you.”

Japan’s Nishikori is scheduled to play unseeded American Ryan Sweeting at 12:30 Friday afternoon, while Tipsarevic will take on Ivan Dodig of Croatia at 2:30 p.m.

Sweeting beat third seed Sam Querrey of Los Angeles 7-6(5), 6-4 Wednesday afternoon.