Karen Khachanov lost to Novak Djokovic at the French Open but returned to the ATP top 10

Russian players completed their performances at the French Open in singles. At the 1/4 final stage, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova lost in two games to the Czech Karolina Muchova, and Karen Khachanov lost in four sets to the 22-time Grand Slam winner Novak Djokovic from Serbia. Nevertheless, according to the results of the Paris Major, Khachanov will return to the top ten of the world ranking three and a half years later, where on June 12, for the first time in history, there will be three Russians. From the press box of the Philippe Chatrier court, the main arena of Roland Garros, the Kommersant correspondent watched the matches of compatriots Evgeny Fedyakov.

The fracture crept up unnoticed. Having taken the first set with the help of an active variational game, forcing Novak Djokovic to pull back behind the back line and not allowing him to earn a single break point in two hours of play, Karen Khachanov suddenly lost control of the situation in the tie-break of the second set and lost seven points in a row. And when, at the beginning of the third set, Djokovic immediately managed to take someone else’s serve, it became clear that the sensation, apparently, would not happen, and the Serb, as had already happened dozens of times in his career, overcame that critical milestone, beyond which a direct path to victory opens. And to the melody of the Russian romance “Dear long”, which the trumpeters from the podium near the press box entertained the Parisian audience with, Djokovic famously rushed along this path. In the third game, he took a deep breath, throwing off the burden of responsibility, brought to 100% the number of points won on the second serve, which in the first set he had only 39%, put the game in order on the back line. “I felt the moment,” the great tennis player will say in the press center after the end of the match. And this did not surprise any of the journalists, since hardly anyone in tennis now knows how to get out of such situations better than him.

The most experienced Croatian specialist Vedran Martic, who once worked with the 2001 Wimbledon champion Goran Ivanisevic, who now, in turn, trains Djokovic, tried to inspire his Russian ward to a feat with words and gestures. In the eighth game of the fourth set, Khachanov managed to make his last break after a double mistake by the Serb, equalizing the score. However, the inevitability of a denouement in favor of Djokovic was predetermined. Not only has the Serbian had a psychological advantage for a long time, but the discomfort in the thigh returned to the Russian against the background of the Parisian loads, due to which he did not play for about a month after the Australian Open. In the last two games, Khachanov did not take a single point, and after 3 hours and 38 minutes, Djokovic celebrated his 45th entry into the semi-finals of the Grand Slam tournament (the record – 46 semi-finals – still belongs to Roger Federer). Khachanov’s slight advantage in feed speed, the number of accurate passing shots and mixes at the end of the meeting was not decisive. The key stats were naturally in favor of Djokovic, who scored 19 points more with clear shots while making fewer unforced errors.

But even despite all this, Karen Khachanov, according to him, leaves Paris with his head held high. After all, in addition to reaching the quarterfinals, he managed to return to the top ten of the world ranking, where he had been for the last time a very long time ago, in October 2019. Moreover, June 12 will be a historic day for Russian tennis. For the first time in history, three Russian players will simultaneously be in the top 10 rankings of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). But if Daniil Medvedev has de facto already secured a ticket to the final tournament in Turin, then for Andrei Rublev and Karen Khachanov, the decisive stage of the dispute for a place in the final eight is ahead. In terms of points scored this season, Rublev is seventh, and Khachanov is ninth. The next important stage of the fight will be Wimbledon. At the moment, some Russian tennis players, including Daniil Medvedev, have problems obtaining English visas. True, Rublev and Khachanov, according to a Kommersant correspondent, have them.

Lost on Tuesday and the last representative of Russia in the women’s singles grid, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who lost in two games to Karolina Muchova. The talented 26-year-old Czech, who has repeatedly had to deal with injuries, reached the semi-finals of the major for the first time, where she will now play with the Belarusian Arina Sabolenko. Pavlyuchenkova, who played for a week and a half in a row without pain in her long-suffering knee, will have to rest after an excellent Roland Garros, following which she will rise from 333rd place in the world ranking by about 220 positions. After that, she will continue to fight for a place in the top hundred, which allows her to directly get into the main draw of the US Open. According to the Russian woman, she still has three more Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) tournaments in reserve, for which she can apply with the help of a protected rating.