Interview with Karen Khachanov about winning the tournament in Zhuhai

On Tuesday, in the final of the Huafa Properties Zhuhai Championships, an Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) 250 category tournament with a prize fund of $1 million, Karen Khachanov defeated Japanese Yoshihito Nishioka in two games, winning his first title since 2018 and fifth overall. In an interview with a Kommersant correspondent Evgeniy Fedyakov The 14th world number 14 explained how he managed to achieve this success, told how he was treated for a serious injury after the French Open, and assessed his chances of finishing the current season in the top ten.

— For the first time in five years won ATP tournament, moreover, shortly after a serious injury. How does it feel?

— Apart from the break due to injury, I have been playing very good tennis lately and even returned to the top ten for a short time. However, I really haven’t won a tournament for a very long time. So winning the title was one of the big goals I set for myself. And her decision, and almost immediately after the forced break, gives me the tone to further move forward.

— What were the specifics of the injury that caused you to miss almost three months between Roland Garros and the US Open?

— Even after the Australian Open (where Khachanov reached the semifinals.— “Kommersant”) I started having problems with the adductor muscles and the pubic bone, which became very inflamed and painful. This injury is common among football players. The doctors stopped me, but I, having missed almost the entire February, continued to play on painkillers. Eventually, a moment came at Roland Garros when, due to the constant forced redistribution of the load, the sacrum was injured. Doctors call this a stress fracture; on magnetic resonance imaging, a simple line appears in the injured area, and you experience crazy pain and simply cannot do anything. In general, one thing was connected to the other, and in fact I had to treat two injuries.

— How was the recovery?

“I had six weeks of complete rest, spending time with my family, and then began rehabilitation with two doctors and a physiotherapist in Barcelona. True, it soon became clear that it should have been carried out a little differently. But, after I tried a different treatment method in Belgrade, I was able to start systematic training and fly to America in about ten days. I really wanted to play at the US Open, although objectively I was not ready for this. But the last three weeks of work have yielded good results.

On the way to China, I stopped in Moscow, where I trained very intensively for nine days. And these trainings were not in vain.

— Why did you decide to start the Asian series in Zhuhai? After all, at the same time there was a tournament in Chengdu, where in 2016 you took the first ATP title of your career and then competed one more time.

“I wanted to change something, and this choice turned out to be the right one.” I heard that Zhuhai is wet and has slow courts, but in fact they were very fast. And the humidity actually turned out to be insane, over 80%. I love these conditions, but not to this extent.

— Did they remind you of the Tokyo Olympics, where you won silver in 2021?

– A little. Only there we played outdoors, but here the center court was under a roof, without air conditioning, and I felt like I was in a sauna. I ran back three games and it was time to change my jersey.

— How do you assess the level of your play in the final against Yoshihito Nishioka? Was this already your maximum?

– I wouldn’t say. The most important thing now is that I am pain-free and ready for more serious stress. I knew that in terms of tennis I was pretty good, but the tournament process is still different from the training process, and I haven’t played at least two matches in a row for more than three months, since I was eliminated in the first round at the US Open. As for the final, the first set was important. It turned out to be very difficult, but by winning the tiebreaker, I put my opponent in a difficult situation from a psychological point of view, since he understood that to win in such difficult conditions he needed to run back two more sets.

Overall, as the tournament progressed, I improved with each match. It will be great if the positive dynamics continue until the end of the year.

— After a successful first half of the season, you had a good chance of getting a place in the top 8, which would give you the right to play at the final tournament in Turin. Are you now determined to play through the last few weeks without stress or will you set yourself some goals? After all, at the beginning of the season you said that you were striving to take a place in the top ten.

— My goals are the same as before. I returned to the top ten this year, even if only for a week, and also took the title. It’s bad, of course, that I couldn’t score points for three months, but I couldn’t count on the fact that my competitors would also stop and wait for me. Therefore, now I set myself the same goals as at the beginning of the season, and I am as motivated as possible. There are still several big tournaments ahead, and I hope that my health will allow me to finish the year well. And in what place – we’ll see.

— What is your schedule for the rest of the season?

— Since January I have held 13 tournaments. This is not enough, so in the fall I decided to play every week: Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, then Europe. Perhaps if I constantly go far along the grids, I will have to give up something. But such a choice is not a problem that spoils the mood.