Carlos Alcaras was cooled down by Astana

At the Astana Open, a tournament of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) in the 500 category with a prize fund of $ 1.9 million, taking place in the capital of Kazakhstan, Carlos Alcaraz, the leader of the world classification, dropped out of the fight at the very start, for whom this was the first personal tournament after the triumph at the US Open . Having suffered his first defeat in two games this season from the Belgian David Goffin, the 19-year-old Spaniard will not be able to increase the lead in the rankings from Rafael Nadal, his closest pursuer and main competitor in the fight for the title of the first racket of the world at the end of the year.

The Astana Open is one of ten ATP tournaments left to be held this year before the Nitto ATP Finals. And in terms of the level of participants, it will probably be second only to the Rolex Paris Masters in this top ten. In any case, the list of “seeds” at the Astana Open includes only representatives of the elite with very big names. In addition to Carlos Alcaras, who rose to first place after the US Open, Daniil Medvedev (4th in the world), Stefanos Tsitsipas (6th), Novak Djokovic (7th), Andrei Rublev (9th), Hubert Hurkacz (10th), Felix Auger-Aliassime (13th), and Marin Cilic (14th) replaced the injured Yannick Sinner (12th). At the same time, Djokovic received a wild card about ten days before the start of the competition, having accepted a personal invitation from the President of the Tennis Federation of Kazakhstan, Bulat Utemuratov.

The history of the Kazakh ATP tournament began two years ago, when at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, a place was found for it in the calendar due to the cancellation of the autumn Chinese series.

Australian John Millman became the first champion in Astana, and a year later another middle peasant scored there – Korean Kwon Sung Wu. However, this season has become special for the Astana Open. Even in winter, its organizers acquired from the former organizers of St. Petersburg Open a permanent license to host a category 250 tournament (according to Kommersant, the deal could be about $7 million). And in July, when it became clear that the resumption of the Chinese series was not expected again, ATP provided the Astana Open with the 500 category for one year, de facto moving the Beijing China Open to the capital of Kazakhstan. A similar scheme, we recall, was applied in 2020, when the St. Petersburg Open.

The saturation of the Astana Open tournament grid with strong tennis players predetermined the surprises that were born in the first two days.

On Monday, Felix Auger-Aliassime dropped out of the fight, who lost to the famous Spaniard Roberto Bautista, and on Tuesday there was a real sensation. The first racket of the world Carlos Alcaras with a score of 5:7, 3:6 lost to the Belgian David Goffin, who is now only 66th in the ranking, could not qualify and got a place in the main draw only as a lucky loser. Moreover, the newly minted and youngest tennis king in history, for the first time since November last year, could not take a single game.

Alcaraz’s disappointment was so great that he did not even find the moral strength to come to the press conference.

There are at least two reasons for this failure. Firstly, the still quite young Spaniard, apparently, has not yet managed to completely psychologically retreat after the triumph on US Open, which took away a lot of emotions from him. After all, except for the Laver Cup, a team match between the teams of Europe and the rest of the world, the results of which are included in the official statistics of the ATP, but are not taken into account when calculating the rating, this was the first tournament for the 19-year-old tennis king. Secondly, Alcaraz was unlucky with the draw, because Goffin is the most experienced master, who at one time was the seventh in the world, and this year won his sixth ATP title in Marrakech, reached the quarterfinals at Wimbledon, and only lost to Rafael Nadal in a tie-break in the decisive set. By the way, for the Belgian this is already the third victory over the leader of the rating, and the two previous ones – in 2017 and 2020 – he won over Nadal, who, although he took some pause in performances due to his wife’s pregnancy, is currently Alcaraz’s main competitor in the fight for the title of the first racket of the world at the end of the year.

Leading Russian tennis players are performing well in Astana so far, without losing a single set. Andrey Rublev handled Serb Laszlo Djere, Karen Khachanov – American Maxim Cressy, and Daniil Medvedev never gave up his serve in a meeting with 34-year-old Spanish veteran Albert Ramos Viñolas. 23-year-old Pavel Kotov also reached the 1/8 finals, another lucky loser who confidently defeated the Spaniard Alejandro Davidovich Fokina and now, apparently, will make his debut in the top hundred. As for Novak Djokovic, who is in the bottom half of the bracket along with Medvedev, Khachanov and Kotov, he arrived in Astana only on Monday morning, after winning the tournament in Tel Aviv on Sunday, and will play his first match on Wednesday.

Evgeny Fedyakov