Khachanov can win the Australian Open, says Vesnina

Olympic champion Elena Vesnina admitted that she was confident in the victory of Russian tennis player Karen Khachanov over American Sebastian Korda (7:6, 6:3, 3:0) in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open.

Korda refused to fight in the third set with the score 7:6 (6:3), 6:3, 3:0 in favor of the Russian. Thus, the 26-year-old native of Moscow made it to the semifinals of the Grand Slam tournament for the second time in a row, the previous one was the US Open‑2022.

– Excellent result, very happy for Karen, deservedly so. I was sure that Khachanov would beat Korda, although it is unpleasant that the American got injured and withdrew. Karen had a smooth and good match, it was hard for Korday to provide anything. For the second Grand Slam tournament in a row, Khachanov reaches the semi-finals, which indicates that he has noticeably improved and is in good physical shape.

Khachanov can win the tournament, why not? Now all tennis players who have remained in the grid are contenders for victory. It is clear that the main favorite is Novak Djokovic, but different things can happen, especially at the Australian Open tournament. There have been cases when tennis players who were not counted on reached the finals. It will be a very difficult match against Djokovic for Karen, but Novak hasn’t beaten Rublev yet, it’s still a long way off.

Khachanov played against Djokovic when he was in amazing shape, and Karen, on the contrary, did not play very well for himself. Now Karen is in amazing shape, he is ready, he has gained experience and it is quite possible that now it will be a completely different story compared to the matches they played before, Vesnina told Metaratings.ru.