Aslan Karatsev has made the biggest jump in the top 100 of the FedEx ATP Rankings to start this season, and the 27-year-old seems to want to keep climbing. Making his Miami Open presented with the Itau debate as a No. 17 seed, Karatsev defeated Mikhail Kukushkin 6-4, 6-3 Saturday.
Competing with his first major draw at the ATP Masters 1000 event, Karatsev broke the serve four times and turned around an early deficit to win in an hour and 20 minutes. Into the third round, Karatsev awaits the winner between Sebastian Korda and 10th seed Fabio Fognini.
“It was a very difficult game. To make it not easy to play your first game against Kukushkin, it ‘s quite against it, ”Karatsev said in a court interview. “The courts are slower here than last week in Dubai, so you have to change. The first game is always tough, but I found a way to beat it. ”
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Karatsev ended last season at No. 112 in the FedEx ATP Rankings, but it has exploded into the top 30 after the impressive first three months of 2021. The Russian turned heads when he reached the semi-finals of the Australian Open as candidate, and supported him by winning his first ATP Tour title at the Dubai Free Tennis Championships.
“Of course it gives me the confidence to win my first title, but you get here and it’s a different surface and a new competition,” Karatsev said. “So you try [to think of it] like a new competition and a new place, but it really gives me a lot of confidence. ”
Karatsev has a 13-2 record of the season, with his only two losses so far coming at the hands of Top 4 opponents Novak Djokovic and Dominic Thiem.