Aslan Karatsev completed his fairytale run and beat\u00a0 Lloyd Harris 6-3, 6-2 in the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships final, clinching a maiden ATP 500 title.
\nWith Saturday’s win, in a showpiece between players competing in their first-ever ATP 500 finals, the Russian makes his Top-30 debut in the ATP rankings at 27.
\nThe 27-year-old also becomes the third Russian champion on the Tour this season, plus joins an exclusive club in becoming the third wild card to win this ATP 500 event\u00a0after Wayne Ferreira (1995) and Thomas Muster (1997).
\nKaratsev made the early break for 2-0, as a well-placed forehand made Harris go long on the return. Although Harris fought off three breakpoints to hold serve for 4-2, the Russian quickly closed the first set 6-3 in just under 40 minutes.
\nThrough the course of the match, he ripped groundstrokes into Harris\u2019 forehand corners and opened the court well, striking 12 winners in the first set. A relentless Karatsev smashed 27 winners and saved the two breakpoints he faced, dominating behind his second serve return throughout the match (10\/12) and clinched the trophy with an overhead winner.
\nThe Dubai Wild Card entrant began his 2021 season with a 3-10 record at tour level and has since compiled a 12-2 record. World No1 Novak Djokovic (Australian Open) and World No4 Dominic Thiem (Doha) are the only two players to have defeated\u00a0him\u00a0this year.
\nHarris has plenty of positives to take with him,\u00a0ahead of an expected appearance at the\u00a0Miami Open. The South African overcame the likes of US Open Champion Thiem, Kei Nishikori and Denis Shapovalov on his path to the\u00a0final.
\n\u201cIt was a fantastic week, beating some top players and today\u2019s game was a bit mentally and physically demanding\u201d, Harris said in the on-court interview.
\nOver a fortnight of scintillating tennis action by the ATP and WTA players, the Dubai Tennis Championship attracted 50 million viewers.
\nIn testing times, the tournament\u2019s bubble arrangements received praise from several players.
\nCanadian Tennis Shapovalov said: \u201cDubai is one of the best bubbles that we are going to have, and we even had a beach here; else it\u2019s just hotel rooms and the tennis court and it can get really tough and depressing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Aslan Karatsev completed his fairytale run and beat\u00a0 Lloyd Harris 6-3, 6-2 in the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships final, clinching a maiden ATP 500 title.
\nWith Saturday\u2019s win, in a showpiece between players competing in their first-ever ATP 500 finals, the Russian makes his Top-30 debut in the ATP rankings at 27.
\nThe 27-year-old also becomes the third Russian champion on the Tour this season, plus joins an exclusive club in becoming the third wild card to win this ATP 500 event\u00a0after Wayne Ferreira (1995) and Thomas Muster (1997).
\nKaratsev made the early break for 2-0, as a well-placed forehand made Harris go long on the return. Although Harris fought off three breakpoints to hold serve for 4-2, the Russian quickly closed the first set 6-3 in just under 40 minutes.
\nThrough the course of the match, he ripped groundstrokes into Harris\u2019 forehand corners and opened the court well, striking 12 winners in the first set. A relentless Karatsev smashed 27 winners and saved the two breakpoints he faced, dominating behind his second serve return throughout the match (10\/12) and clinched the trophy with an overhead winner.
\nThe Dubai Wild Card entrant began his 2021 season with a 3-10 record at tour level and has since compiled a 12-2 record. World No1 Novak Djokovic (Australian Open) and World No4 Dominic Thiem (Doha) are the only two players to have defeated\u00a0him\u00a0this year.
\nHarris has plenty of positives to take with him,\u00a0ahead of an expected appearance at the\u00a0Miami Open. The South African overcame the likes of US Open Champion Thiem, Kei Nishikori and Denis Shapovalov on his path to the\u00a0final.
\n\u201cIt was a fantastic week, beating some top players and today\u2019s game was a bit mentally and physically demanding\u201d, Harris said in the on-court interview.
\nOver a fortnight of scintillating tennis action by the ATP and WTA players, the Dubai Tennis Championship attracted 50 million viewers.
\nIn testing times, the tournament\u2019s bubble arrangements received praise from several players.
\nCanadian Tennis Shapovalov said: \u201cDubai is one of the best bubbles that we are going to have, and we even had a beach here; else it\u2019s just hotel rooms and the tennis court and it can get really tough and depressing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47592"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47592"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47593,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47592\/revisions\/47593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}