Trumpet called to the semifinals – Newspaper Kommersant No. 187 (7388) dated 10/08/2022

At the Astana Open, a 500 category tournament of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) with a prize fund of $ 2 million, which is ongoing in the capital of Kazakhstan, the participants of the semi-finals have been determined. All of them are in the top ten of the world ranking. On Saturday, Andrey Rublev, who defeated the Frenchman Adrian Mannarino, will play with the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas, and then two ex-first rackets of the world will meet – Serb Novak Djokovic, who beat Karen Khachanov, and Daniil Medvedev, who easily coped with the dangerous rival Spaniard Roberto Bautista.

How high the level of participants in the quarterfinals of the Astana Open turned out to be is evidenced by the fact that five tennis players from the top ten of the ATP classification reached this stage at once – that is, all the representatives of the top 10 who came to this tournament, with the exception of the first racket of the world Carlos Alcaraz. And two of them – Stefanos Tsitsipas and Hubert Hurkach met each other, playing in the first set just a great tie-break. The Pole had a big advantage – 6:3, but missed four set points, and in the second game the Greek caught the courage and acted with a large margin. As a result, Tsitsipas won – 7:6 (10:8), 6:3, and this defeat did not allow Hurkach to improve his position in the fight for getting into the final Nitto ATP Finals tournament. Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime, his main competitor in the dispute for seventh place in points scored this season, he is 135 points behind. Apparently, between these two players, as well as the American Taylor Fritz, who reached the semi-finals in Tokyo on Friday and also really claims to get into the Nitti ATP Finals, a tough fight will unfold in the coming weeks, most likely for the last place in the Turin eight .

But Andrei Rublev, after a very quick and easy victory over Adrian Mannarino – 6:1, 6:2 in just 55 minutes – was able to take a very important step on the way to Turin. The Frenchman clearly did not feel the best, moved poorly and sinned with double faults.

In turn, Rublev looked collected and did exactly what the friendly Astana audience expected from him, including two drummers and a trumpeter, who mobilized the Russian nervous system and almost every minute reminded him that it makes no sense to leave Astana ahead of time.

A slight advantage in a series of personal meetings (5:4), perhaps, allows us to consider Tsitsipas the favorite of the first Saturday semi-final, although by and large it will be a match of equal opponents, who, by the way, did not give up a single game on their serves this week.

The Friday evening program was also interesting. Karen Khachanov had a difficult task to overcome Novak Djokovic, who had already beaten the Russian in Dubai and Belgrade this season. And it didn’t work out. In the first game, everything was decided by the ending left for the Serb, and in the second set, the key break made by Djokovic in the fourth game. The Serb showed a fundamental game, having only one unsuccessful game on his serve, after which Khachanov managed to temporarily restore the balance in the first set. As a result – 6:4, 6:3. Over the past ten days, this is the seventh consecutive victory for the Serb, who took the title in Tel Aviv last week. True, having missed the American series due to the lack of a coronavirus vaccine, Djokovic missed the tournaments, has the utmost motivation and claims that he does not feel tired.

Djokovic’s opponent was determined in the final match of the day – Daniil Medvedev vs. Roberto Bautista. Having a positive balance of meetings with the Russian (4:1), the Spaniard seemed to be able to count on success, especially since the slow court in the hall suits him absolutely in the manner of the game. The more surprising was the easy victory of Medvedev, who gave up one game in each of the sets, lost only three points out of 26 on his first serve and, without delaying the matter, won in 65 minutes – 6:1, 6:1. The upcoming semi-final will be the first meeting between a Russian and a Serbian since Djokovic won three games in the final of last year’s Masters 1000 tournament in Paris. “We have an important match ahead of us, in which physical readiness will have an increased value,” he said.

Evgeny Fedyakov