Aslan Karatsev had never managed to make it into the main draw of a Grand Slam tournament. Now he just refuses to leave the Australian Open.
Karatsev, a 27-year-old Russian qualifier who is ranked 114th, yesterday became the first man in the professional era to reach the semi-finals of his first major by beating 18th seed Grigor Dimitrov 2-6, 6-4, 6-1, 6-2.
“It’s an unbelievable feeling,” Karatsev said. “Of course, it’s [the] first time. First time in main draw; first time semis. It’s incredible.”
Photo: AP
That is a pretty good word for what he has managed to do.
Karatsev failed in nine previous attempts to go through the qualifying rounds to play at a Grand Slam tournament. Now he is making the most of it, getting past Dimitrov — a three-time major semi-finalist — after also eliminating two other seeded players, No. 8 Diego Schwartzman and No. 20 Felix Auger-Aliassime.
“It’s great to see. I think it’s great to see,” Dimitrov said about Karatsev’s success. “Surprised? No.”
Bothered by back spams that developed on Monday, Dimitrov was not at his best. He finished the match barely able to serve — and barely able to walk up the stairs as he departed Rod Laver Arena.
Dimitrov jumped out to an early lead with three service breaks in the first set. He then held seven break points in Karatsev’s first two service games in the second set, but did not convert any of them.
That is when Karatsev started to believe he could stretch his already remarkable run even further.
“It was really tough in the beginning for me to hold my nerves,” Karatsev said. “It was tricky. I tried to play in the second set, to find a way how to play.”
Dimitrov stopped chasing shots in the third set, then was visited by a trainer and took a medical time-out for treatment on a muscle problem around his lower back.
He had not dropped a set in his first four matches, but said that he had trouble putting his socks on before the match.
“It started yesterday, out of the blue,” Dimitrov said,
Karatsev is the lowest-ranked man to reach the Australian Open semi-finals since Patrick McEnroe — who was also No. 114 in 1991 — and the lowest-ranked man to reach the semi-finals at any Grand Slam since Goran Ivanisevic was No. 125 at Wimbledon in 2001.
Karatsev is to play either eight-time champion Novak Djokovic or Alexander Zverev.
Russians Daniil Medvedev and Andrey Rublev are meeting in a quarter-final in the other half of the draw today, meaning there will be two Russians in the semi-finals at Melbourne Park.
Asked for his thoughts on the possibility of an all-Russian final, Karatsev stuck with what he knows.
“I try not to think about it,” he said, adding that he simply is “going from match to match.”
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