Kei Nishikori and Gael Monfils will be bidding for places in the Halle quarterfinals on Thursday. They are set for respective meetings with Dustin Brown and Mikhail Kukushkin.

(WC) Dustin Brown vs. (2) Kei Nishikori

Nishikori is a stellar 35-8 on the season but he has not quite recaptured the magic of his 2014 run to the U.S. Open final as he heads into second-round action at the Gerry Weber Open on Thursday. The world No. 5 owns two titles (Memphis and Barcelona) and is coming off a quarterfinal appearance at the French Open. Nishikori kicked off his grass-court swing on Tuesday by battling past Dominic Thiem 7-6(4), 7-5.

Up next for the second seed is a first-ever meeting with Brown, who got a wild card into the Halle main draw and defeated Andreas Haider-Maurer 7-5, 6-2 on Monday. The 114th-ranked German has not done much this year, but he…