The kinetic surface roughening of the polished (110) plane of a single-crystal nickel is investigated using atomic force microscopy. The polished (110) surfaces exhibit the scaling behavior characterized by the roughness exponent alpha = 0.83 +/- 0.05, the growth exponent beta = 0.83 +/- 0.07 and the skewness = -0.52 +/- 0.06, whose values are compared with the theoretical values in statistical growth models in deposition. These characteristics indicate that the scaling behavior of the polished nickel surfaces can be related to a statistical growth model of nonlinear diffusion dynamics in deposition.