Australian Open: Aslan Karatsev - The modern fairy tale of the Russian nobodies
Aslan Karatsev was the first to make it to the semi-finals in a Grand Slam tournament. There, however, on Thursday at 9:30 a.m. CET (live on ServusTV in Austria, on Eurosport and in our live ticker), defending champion Novak Djokovic will be the big tournament favorite.
by Jörg Allmeroth
last edit:
Feb 17, 2021, 06:14 pm
On his adventure journey through the world of the tennis business, Aslan Karatsev occasionally ended up in Halle in East Westphalia for a long time. And while fans, media and even some professional colleagues are wondering who this Karatsev actually is, the sensational semi-finalist of the Australian Open, one is already a little further in the German “Little Wimbledon”. “A stoic, calm, very funny guy with a lot of talent”, is how Thorsten Liebich, the team manager of the long-time Bundesliga club Blau-Weiß Halle, describes his former protégé, “Aslan always wanted to play high with the best.” But he did "Something like that" could succeed in Melbourne was "difficult to imagine", says Liebich about the 27-year-old Muscovite, whom they like to call "growl" in the Bundesliga team and in the Weber family's breakpoint team.
Karatsev, known among his colleagues for consuming ambition as well as for his "laconic humor" (Liebich), did nothing less in Melbourne than to turn the Grand Slam world upside down within ten days - with the advance as the first debutante into elite semifinals of one of the absolute top competitions. For many years he gondolas unknown and unrecognized on the unglamorous playing fields of the second and third division of the traveling circus - and now he greets you as one of only four players fighting for the first major trophy of the 2021 season in Melbourne. His next task could not be more difficult and exciting, his duel on Thursday afternoon against world number one and eight-time tournament champion Novak Djokovic, but Karatsev wants to make the very best of the most prominent appearance of his life: “I go out to Center Court without fear ", he says. That is actually the attitude of the Russian nobody, says Liebich, his former companion and boss in Halle: “He wasn't afraid of anyone. He played best against the best. "
Karatsev qualifies in Doha
Karatsev has moved a lot in his life and in his tennis career, together with his parents from Russia to Israel and back. Later, as an aspiring athletic talent, to the German hall, to Barcelona, then to the capital of Belarus, Minsk. It was a life on packed suitcases "somehow all the time", Karatsev says that he only found a home of choice for his profession in Minsk late. In the past, challenging Corona year, he drew attention to himself on the Challenger Tour with strong results and thus fought for the chance for the qualifying matches for the Australian Open. At the beginning of the year, he actually managed to successfully apply for the first Grand Slam of his life, not in Australia itself, but in the Qatari capital Doha. "It was a milestone for me," says Karatsev, "after that I went to Melbourne with great ambition."
Last Friday, his Grand Slam run should have ended with the game against the Argentinean runaway Diego Schwartzman, number 8 on the seeding list - but when it was settled in the Melbourne Arena, there was a fantastic, slightly unreal 6: 3, 6: 3, 6: 3 victory of the qualifier and major newcomer to book. It was "world class", Schwartzman praised the capable outsider afterwards, "I had no chance."
Comeback against Auger-Aliassime
However, things got much better for Karatsev, who two days later, on Sunday, turned a 2-0 set deficit against the highly traded Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime (ATP 20) into a memorable triumph. After all, Karatsev, the remarkable late bloomer, was also lucky: In the quarter-finals he benefited from the Bulgarian's serious injury problems against former ATP world champion Grigor Dimitrov. Nevertheless: His story, the story of the nameless semi-finalist Karatsev, looked like a modern tennis fairy tale, in a time when such coups hardly seemed possible.
He has already won more in Melbourne than he would have dared to dream. After the tournament he will move up to at least 42nd place in the pecking order, so he will be in the main fields of all relevant competitions for a whole season. The hard qualification efforts are now history. And Karatsev's mission is not over yet. Time and again he was asked what chances he had against Djokovic. His answer was dry: “Every match has to be played first. A lot can happen, a lot. "
Here is the individual tableau for the men
laver arena