Khachanov defeated the Czech prodigy in the Doha 2024 final! Karen won her sixth career title.
Arina Poluyanova February 24, 2024, 20:20 Moscow time Audio version: Your browser does not support the audio element.
The Russian took a long tiebreaker for the second consecutive match. In Qatar he did not give up a single set to his opponents!
The ATP-250 series tournament in Doha has come to a difficult end! The trophy of the competition in Qatar was contested by the Russian Karen Khachanov (17th racket in the world) and the Czech Jakub Mensik (116).
Khachanov came out first to serve, scored three aces and immediately showed that he was not going to give his opponent freedom in his games. Menshik, however, was also quite good at serving, but Karen was even more convincing. In the fourth game, the Russian got the first break point, but the Czech, thanks to his patience and his good serve, saved this minigame and did not allow his opponent to get ahead.
Khachanov found it difficult to find something based on Menshik’s speech. It was felt that the tension on the court was increasing, but not a single player in the first game could find the key to the opponent’s game. Everything was decided in the tiebreaker, where the Czechs led 5:2, but lost the advantage and with several inaccuracies, as well as the first double fault, they brought the score to 5:5.
Then the character game began. Khachanov turned out to be psychologically more stable and a little luckier in this tiebreaker. He fended off four set points from his opponent and took the first game on the fourth try. With the same score (14:12), Karen took the tiebreaker in yesterday’s semi-final with Alexey Popyrin.
Karen Khachanov
Photo: Noushad Thekkayil/Getty Images
The defeat in the first game paralyzed Menshik a little: at the beginning of the second game he gave up his serve, and Khachanov took the lead with an early break. After the lost game, Jakub continued to take advantage of his services and face the Russian (in total, the Czech scored 17 aces during the match), but he no longer had the strength to come back in this match.
With the score 3:5 on his serve, Menshik brought the score to 30:30, but showed his inherent resilience and saved the game. The Czech couldn’t do more. Khachanov came out to serve for the match and did everything to finish it beautifully: he led his young opponent around the court, scored a couple of powerful serves at his expense and did not give a single move to his opponent. 7:6(12), 6:4 – and the Doha title goes to the 27-year-old Russian!
The tennis players met for the first time on the court. For Menshik, this was her first final at an ATP tournament. Previously, the best achievements of the Czech were the title of second racket in the world among juniors and the final of the Australian Junior Open in 2022. On the way to the decisive stage in Doha, the 18-year-old tennis player sensationally beat Andrey Rublev ( 6:4, 7:6) and Andy Murray (7:6, 6:7, 7:6), and also defeated Alejandro Davidovich-Fokina (7-6, 6-4) and Gael Monfils (6-4, 1-6, 6-3). Interesting fact: in total, Yakub played six tiebreakers in this tournament and was stronger in four; He today he gave one of them to Karen.
The Qatar final was Khachanov’s eighth in his career. Before that, he won in five decisive stages and was only defeated in two tournaments: at the 2020 Olympic Games and in Adelaide 2022. The Doha title will be the sixth for Karen. The Russian lifted his latest trophy over his head at last year’s ATP-250 series tournament in Zhuhai.
On the way to victory in Doha, Khachanov defeated Alexei Popyrin (7-6, 6-2), Emil Ruusuvuori (3-0, rejection) and Fabian Marozan (6-4, 7-5). A successful performance in Qatar will lift Karen from 17th to 15th in the rankings.
His best result was the title of eighth racket in the world in 2019. Menshik will debut in the top 100, rising 29 positions and taking 87th place.
All Karen Khachanov titles (6):
Chengdu 2016, Marseille, Kremlin Cup, Paris 2018, Zhuhai 2023, Doha 2024.
The next tournament for both tennis players will be the 500 meters in Dubai. Khachanov will face Alexey Popyrin in the first round, whom he beat in the Doha semi-finals, and Menshik will compete with Borna Coric in the United Arab Emirates. The tournament will take place from February 26 to March 2.
