Karen Khachanov did not give up Doha

The winner of the Qatar ExxonMobil Open, an Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) 250 category tournament with a prize fund of $1.4 million, was Karen Khachanov, who beat 18-year-old Czech Jakub Mensik in the final in two sets. This is the sixth title in the career of the Russian tennis player. And at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, a Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) category 1000 competition with a prize fund of $3.2 million, which ended in the UAE, Russian Anna Kalinskaya did not use a great chance to achieve a sensational triumph. Having made her way into the main draw through qualification and defeating three opponents from the top ten on the way to the final, including the world ranking leader Iga Szwiatek from Poland, she lost to the Italian Jasmine Paolini in the decisive match in three sets.

February in the professional tennis calendar is the month of competition in the Middle East. And for the third week in a row, Russian players are in the spotlight there, and this time they were not left without a title.

In Doha, before the start of the Qatar ExxonMobil Open tournament, a Russian final was generally predicted, even despite the fact that Daniil Medvedev, who decided to extend his break a little more after the difficult Australian Open, could not come to Qatar. Therefore, the first number when “seeding” in Qatar was given to Andrey Rublev, the only top-10 player in the main draw, and the second was to Karen Khachanov. Their list of opponents for the 250 tournament looked pretty solid. There were, for example, the Frenchman Hugo Humbert (18th in the world) and Alexander Bublik from Kazakhstan (21st), who recently took one title each at ATP tournaments in European halls, and it was difficult to imagine that the main troublemaker in this case will be 18-year-old Czech Jakub Menšik, who took only 116th place in the ATP classification.

But in the end it turned out that way. A few days ago, in the semi-finals of the “Challenger” (a professional tournament of a low category) in Bahrain, this tall and physically gifted young man lost without options to the 231st racket of the world to the 39-year-old representative of Kazakhstan Mikhail Kukushkin, and this week he gave a simply magnificent victory for himself series.

Among the opponents he defeated were the former world ranking leader, Briton Andy Murray, and Rublev, whom Menshik defeated in the quarterfinals, and the French veteran Gael Monfils.

In turn, Khachanov, who started from the second round, first dealt with the Hungarian Fabian Marozan, then beat the Finn Emil Ruusuvuori, who, for medical reasons, played only three games on the court, after which in the semifinals he broke the resistance of the Australian Alexei Popyrin, taking a very a hard-fought tiebreaker that proved decisive.

The final against Menshik followed a similar scenario. The first set turned out to be equal. Khachanov confidently held his serve, Menshik had to win back one break point, but his excellent serve worked flawlessly for the time being. Therefore, the Russian again needed to play a tiebreaker, which, like in the semifinals, turned out to be protracted, very nervous and ended with a score of 14:12. And at the beginning of the second set, Khachanov’s slight psychological advantage, who had more experience in such important matches, showed itself once again. He immediately took someone else’s serve and, without making a single mistake when playing key points, quite clearly brought the match to its logical outcome – 7:6 (14:12), 6:4 in 1 hour 50 minutes. The Czech tennis player, who made 16 aces in the final and 47 in five matches, became the first finalist of the ATP tournaments born in 2005 and, thanks to his excellent performance, broke into the top hundred.

Well, Khachanov, who won his sixth title in his career, slightly improved his position in the ranking, where he will rise from 17th place to 15th.

Let us remind you, that 12 months ago Daniil Medvedev became the winner of the tournament in Doha, and even earlier, in 2020, Andrei Rublev excelled there. From Doha, Khachanov moves to the UAE, where at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships 500 category he is “seeded” fourth after Medvedev, Rublev and Pole Hubert Hurkacz and will again play with Alexei Popyrin, but at the start.

On the courts of the Dubai Tennis Center, men will replace women, who this week at a tournament with exactly the same name, but in the WTA 1000 category, played for their even more prestigious title. And there the Russian Anna Kalinskaya was very close to triumph, who, demonstrating simply outstanding tennis throughout almost the entire week, dramatically lost the decisive match.

Kalinskaya’s brilliant performance in Dubai was the second surprise in the last two months. The first was reaching the quarterfinals of the Australian Open, where she, occupying only 75th place in the WTA rankings, quite unexpectedly showed the best result of all Russian tennis players. At the same time, in Melbourne, Kalinskaya was still lucky: among her rivals in the four matches she won, there was not a single player from the top twenty. However, in Dubai there was no talk of such luck. Firstly, Kalinskaya started the tournament with qualifications. Secondly, in the main draw from the third round to the semifinals, she had to deal with three consecutive representatives of the top 10 – Elena Ostapenko from Latvia (9th in the world), who has already won two titles this season, and the current US Open champion, American Coco Gauff (3rd) and the world classification leader Iga Szwiatek from Poland, who had previously shown excellent form in February, having won the same 1000 category tournament in Doha a week earlier.

Moreover, it seemed that it was in the final that luck finally smiled on Kalinskaya. After all, her opponent there was Jasmine Paolini, a 28-year-old Italian who was in 26th place in the world classification and had never been among the contenders for the main titles. The rivals met quite recently, in the 1/8 finals of the Australian Open, where Kalinskaya beat Paolini with virtually no options, giving her only six games. And now, for the Russian woman, at first everything turned out quite easily. She not only won the first set in 35 minutes – 6:4, but also led with a break in the second – 3:1.

However, as it turned out a little later, the moral and physical strength of Kalinskaya, who had spent more than ten hours on the Dubai courts in seven previous matches, was already running out.

She continued to employ tried-and-tested tactics, trying to win points with excellent first serves and graceful combinations, finishing rallies with sharp shots from the baseline, but she made more and more mistakes, while her shorter but fresher opponent, operating in a completely different way, defensive manner, gradually achieved a turning point. However, it did not come immediately. Having lost the second game, Kalinskaya led 5:3 in the third set and served for the match in the tenth game, but did it extremely unsuccessfully, after which she lost another game on her serve. Having won – 4:6, 7:5, 7:5, Paolini won her second and most prestigious title, thanks to which she will enter the top 15 of the WTA rankings for the first time next week. Kalinskaya will be there in 24th line. She has never stood so high either, and in terms of points scored this season, she will generally be eighth. For a tennis player who just six months ago was outside the top hundred, this is an excellent indicator.

Evgeniy Fedyakov