Russian tennis players played in the finals of two ATP tournaments at once

On Sunday, two finals of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) tournaments took place with the participation of players from Russia. Aslan Karatsev in Tokyo at the Kinoshita Group Japan Open Tennis Championships lost the championship title to the American Ben Shelton, and Pavel Kotov, who in Stockholm made his way to the main draw through the BNP Paribas Nordic Open qualification, missed out on a victory over the French veteran Gael Monfils. Since January, the Russians have reached the decisive stages of ATP tournaments 17 times, and according to this indicator, the current season has become the most fruitful in history.

The finals of ATP tournaments with the participation of tennis players who made it to the main draw through qualification are played infrequently. The previous time this happened twenty months ago – in February 2022, when the Czech Jiri Vesely turned out to be a troublemaker in Dubai, losing to Andrei Rublev. So 24-year-old Muscovite Pavel Kotov, who performed this week in Stockholm BNP Paribas Nordic Open (category – 250, prize fund – €750 thousand) can, by and large, be proud of itself.

Having won six matches in a few days, including the semi-final with Serbian Miomir Kecmanovic, the 53rd racket of the world, he not only gained a foothold in the top hundred of the world rankings, where he will now occupy the highest place in his career, 81st, but was also remembered for his spectacular play with his own playing style, which is characterized by a combination of tenacity with aggressiveness, a good first serve and a powerful forehand.

Another thing is that Kotov’s defeat from 37-year-old Gael Monfils, of course, became incredibly offensive.

And it’s not that last week the Frenchman was only 140th in the ranking, which, of course, does not even come close to his level of skill. It’s just that the Russian, who was accompanied in Stockholm by one of his coaches, Mikhail Bril, played superbly in the middle of the first game and came close to triumph.

When in the 11th game of the second set Monfils’ serve reached 0:40, it might have seemed that the veteran was exhausted and completely broken. But Kotov failed to take advantage of the triple break point, and in the third game his artistic opponent caught his crazy courage and, not without the help of excellent defense with sharp attacking attacks, first achieved a significant advantage, and then, having slightly lost it, still brought the match to victory.

The result was 6:4, 6:7 (6:8), 3:6 in 2 hours 37 minutes, and one can only admire Monfils’ dedication to tennis. Belonging to the same generation as world ranking leader Novak Djokovic, he has been competing at the ATP level for two decades, brought his number of titles to 12 and returned to the top 100 after another injury.

And a few hours earlier in Tokyo on Kinoshita Group Japan Open Tennis Championships (category – 500, prize fund – $1.85 million), Aslan Karatsev lost his first final since January last year.

However, in his meeting with American Ben Shelton, an equal fight was observed only until the 11th game of the first set, after which the Russian lost the thread of the game.

The victory in 1 hour 22 minutes – 7:5, 6:1 brought Shelton not only his first title, but also his first entry into the top 14 of the world classification, while Karatsev will move from the end of the fifth ten to the fourth, and in case of successful performance at its last two ATP tournaments of this season, in Vienna and Paris, it can rise even higher.

But even though Sunday did not bring titles to Russian men’s tennis, it updated one of its oldest records. Since January, Daniil Medvedev, Andrei Rublev, Karen Khachanov, Roman Safiullin, and now Aslan Karatsev and Pavel Kotov, who have joined them, have reached the decisive stages of ATP tournaments 17 times already, and according to this indicator, the current season for the Russians has become the most fruitful in history .

They surpassed the achievement of 2021, when Medvedev, Rublev, Khachanov and Karatsev held 15 personal finals, and the result of 2000, when Marat Safin and Yevgeny Kafelnikov reached the finals 13 times, but set another record for the number of titles – 9. However, Representatives of the current generation, who have achieved eight tournament victories this year, still have three tournament weeks at their disposal.

Evgeniy Fedyakov