Karen Khachanov started with a feat

Roland Garros began in Paris, the second Grand Slam tournament this season with a total prize fund of €49.6 million. In his first match, world No. 11 Karen Khachanov outplayed Frenchman Constant Lestienne. To do this, on an unusually slow court, the Russian needed to accomplish a feat – for the third time in his career, win back a two-game deficit. As Karen Khachanov pulled his hair out of the Parisian swamp, Suzanne Lenglen watched from the podium of the court “Kommersant” correspondent Evgeny Fedyakov.

For Karen Khachanov, the French Grand Slam tournament is perhaps the most successful. True, he has not yet reached the semi-finals, as at the US and Australian Opens, but he won 18 matches – more than at any other major. There is an explanation for this: at the six previous Roland Garros, Khachanov performed extremely stably. On account of his quarter-finals in 2019 and four exits in the 1/8 finals. Therefore, before the start of the meeting with the Frenchman Constant Lestienne, who after the Australian Open did not win a single meeting out of nine in the main draws of the ATP tournaments, it seemed that Khachanov would cope with such an opponent quite easily.

But it turned out differently. There was a moment when the Russian was not too far from an unexpected defeat.

Short, nimble Lestienne did not seem to be doing anything special, but with the support of his native audience – and this match opened the tournament program on the Suzanne Lenglen court, the second most important at Roland Garros – French perseverance worked wonders.

Having given the first set in the fight, Khachanov extremely unsuccessfully played the second game, and only then everything turned the other way.

Two things contributed to this. First, the physical condition of Lestienne, who began to have problems with the calf muscles. Secondly, Khachanov gave the command to significantly loosen the string tension on his rackets, which allowed him to add accuracy.

“I really enjoy playing in Paris, but this year the conditions here are different than before. The courts are too wet and viscous. The ball does not slip, and with those who move well, it is difficult to finish rallies in three or four strokes, ”the Russian explained after the game to a Kommersant correspondent, who did not stint on metaphors and compared the famous Parisian clay surface with a swamp.

According to him, Khachanov rarely resorts to string manipulation at tournaments. But now she helped him. In the fifth installment, Lestienne resisted and played one break, but in the eighth game, the Russian again took someone else’s serve and won in 3 hours and 42 minutes – 3:6, 1:6, 6:2, 6:1, 6:3.

It is not the first time for Khachanov to save almost hopeless matches, winning back from a score of 0:2 in sets. He did the same in 2018 at Wimbledon in the meeting of the third round with the American Francis Tiafoe and in 2020 at the US Open in the opening confrontation with the Italian Yannick Sinner. Now the Russian will have to play with 33-year-old Moldavian Radu Albot, who occupies 113th place in the world ranking, and resembles Lestienne in terms of the level and manner of play. The leader of Moldovan tennis made it to the main draw of many years through qualification, after which he dealt with American Patrick Kipson, who received a wild card, in four sets.