Miami beckons with a semi-final – Newspaper Kommersant No. 54 (7499) of 03/30/2023

Two Russians reached the quarterfinals of the Miami Open, a prestigious tournament of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) in the Masters 1000 category with a prize fund of $8.8 million. Karen Khachanov, having interrupted a series of 23 defeats from opponents from the top ten of the world ranking, coped with the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas in two sets, and Daniil Medvedev confidently outplayed the Frenchman Kanten Alis. If successful, they will face each other in their next matches.

It so happened that of the nine tournaments of the Masters 1000 category included in the ATP calendar, the competition in Miami has historically been one of the most problematic for Russian tennis players. Until this season, in its entire 38-year history, they had only seven quarter-finals, the semi-finals of Andrei Rublev in 2021 and the sensational victory of Nikolai Davydenko in 2008. And, for example, Karen Khachanov, who has been in the top thirty for the sixth year in a row, won only two out of eight matches at the Miami Open. And now it seemed that it would be extremely difficult for Khachanov to radically improve his statistics, because in the fourth round he was waiting for a match with the third racket of the world Stefanos Tsitsipas, an extremely difficult opponent for him, who won all six of their previous meetings with the Russian. Moreover, since August 2019, Khachanov has developed an extremely unpleasant long streak of 23 defeats against opponents from the top ten.

However, this time everything worked out very well for the Russian. He served superbly (73% of hits from the first ball) and won back both break points that Tsitsipas had in the seventh game of the first game.

Then there was a tie-break, at the end of which Khachanov coped with the pressure of the Greek all over the court, but Tsitsipas completely failed the fifth game of the second set, making one double mistake and three mistakes when hitting from the left.

The Russian did not provide a real chance to recoup his opponent. As a result – 7:6 (7:4), 6:4 in a little more than an hour and a half. “It is more important not that I managed to beat Stefanos today, but the style in which I did it,” Khachanov noted.

Part of the justification for this failure for Tsitsipas can be shoulder problems, which, according to the tennis player himself, arose due to the constant change of balls during a series of hard tournaments and forced him to withdraw from the tournament in Acapulco a month ago. Although Khachanov, having reached the semi-finals of the Australian Open in January, also received an injury that required some time for treatment.

Daniil Medvedev, unlike the overwhelming majority of his compatriots, has been performing relatively successfully in Miami lately. The quarter-final, which he reached after a very confident victory over the Frenchman Quentin Alice, who was well known to him, was the third in a row for the Russian.

Due to rain, the start of their match was delayed by about five hours, which Medvedev, as he later said, spent lying on the couch, but this did not affect the quality of his game.

In two sets, Alice managed to take only 14 points at the reception. Thus, Medvedev, who started this tournament against the backdrop of fatigue accumulated after reaching the final in Indian Wells, once again saved his strength. His first meeting, with the Spaniard Roberto Carballes Baena, lasted 63 minutes, the Slovak Alex Molchan in the 1/16 finals could not enter the court due to injury, and Alice lasted 71 minutes. In the quarterfinals, Medvedev got the 26-year-old American Christopher Eubanks, who occupies 119th place in the world ranking, qualified, and in the main draw he has so far been able to avoid meetings with elite tennis players. For such a titled player as Medvedev, who is also in excellent shape, this can be said to be a passing option.

Karen Khachanov, who is moving towards Medvedev on the grid, also got a quite suitable opponent in the quarterfinals – the 31st racket of the world, Francisco Cerundolo. The track record of this Argentinean is richer than that of Eubanks. He has one ATP title on his account, won last year in Bostad, in Miami he stopped the Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime, who is in the top ten, in the 1/16 finals. However, for now, Cerundolo has more of a proven track record as a ground specialist. So the first ever Russian semi-final of the Miami Open is quite real at the moment.

Evgeny Fedyakov