The curse is lifted! The Russian tennis player won a major victory

Tuesday’s program turned out to be intense and very interesting for fans from Russia. Several of our athletes won in the first round of the WTA 500 tournament in Tokyo. In the men’s singles it was even more fun – two of our tennis players competed in parallel in the finals of the Chinese ATP 250 series tournaments.

Roman Safiullin was close to a sensational victory over a strong opponent, but still no miracle happened. But Karen Khachanov left no chance for his opponent in his final and took the long-awaited title!

The first personal trophy for our tennis player since 2018.

Zverev did not flinch

On Tuesday, Russian tennis player Roman Safiullin tried to compete for victory in the final of the ATP 250 series tournament in Chengdu, China. His opponent was Tokyo Olympic champion Alexander Zverev. A little earlier, in another city of the People’s Republic of China, Zhuhai, Karen Khachanov appeared on the court, and had to compete with the representative of Japan, Yoshihito Nishioka, in the battle for the trophy. The winner of the 2021 Davis Cup and vice-champion of the 2020 Games received the first seed at his tournament and was considered as the main favorite. Of course, he had strong rivals, including among his compatriots. Aslan Karatsev reached the semi-finals, but the Russian final never became a reality – our athlete lost to Nishioka.

For Safiullin, participation in the final confrontation itself could be considered an achievement. On the way to the main match, he knocked out the American Nakashima, the British Evans, the Australian Thompson and the Italian Musetti, who, by the way, had the second seed. In the final, Roman was awaited by Olympic champion Tokyo Zverev, who was seeded number one in Chengdu. It seemed that our athlete had little chance of success in this dispute – especially since the German’s serve flew well right away. But Safiullin clung to his chances and reached a tiebreaker in the first set. Alexander, perhaps, did not expect such agility from his opponent: in the decisive period of the game he was not like himself, giving the Russian victory.

Roman Safiullin / Photo: © VCG / Contributor / Visual China Group / Gettyimages.ru

The second set was also an even fight, but from the outside it seemed that our tennis player had slowed down a little – as if he was counting on the Olympic champion to continue to make mistakes regularly. It came down to a tiebreaker again, where Safiullin almost performed a minor miracle by retrieving the dead ball. But, alas, the positive moment did not in any way affect the outcome; Zverev achieved victory and entered the third game with full confidence that the trophy would not escape him. And indeed, in the decisive set, the titled tennis player did not flinch, winning with a score of 6:3.

Karen didn’t give the final

Khachanov started in Zhuhai with a confident victory in two sets over Australian Alex Bolt. Then he suffered a little in the quarterfinals with American Mackenzie McDonald, giving his opponent the opening game, but taking the remaining two. In the semifinals, Karen stopped another American, Sebastian Korda (7:5, 6:4). To get to the trophy, all that remained was to deal with the 46th racket of the ATP ranking, Nishioka.

Khachanov started powerfully, and the fans might have thought that this meeting would not last long. However, after the break, the Russian tennis player lost some ground and was unable to build on his success. The Japanese won three games in a row and already took the lead. Perhaps the key moment of the game was the situation in the 10th game, when Karen brilliantly hit the court twice, turning the tide in the game and leveling the score in the game. Our tennis player was not going to settle for little and confidently snatched victory in the tiebreak – 7:2.

Yoshihito Nishioka / Photo: © Clive Brunskill / Staf / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru

In the second game, the Japanese was completely unable to impose a fight on Khachanov. Having taken his only serve, Nishioka was no longer able to catch a single game. Perhaps I couldn’t stand it physically, maybe it was the failure at the end of the first set that broke me. But it became obvious that Karen would not give up the final – the Russian succeeded in almost everything. He won games to zero, pulled some incredible balls, served powerfully and cunningly outplayed his opponent during rallies. The result was a 6:1 victory in the set and 2:0 in the match.

For the 27-year-old athlete, the trophy in China was the fifth in his career, if only ATP tournaments are taken into account. The last time a Russian won was in November 2018, when he managed to defeat Novak Djokovic at the Masters series tournament in Paris. We can only hope that fans won’t have to wait so long for the tennis player’s next triumph.