"My success is not coming out of nowhere," says Aslan Karatsev

Aslan Karatsev is probably the most surprising name to be in the contest for the 2021 ATP Finals participation as the Russian started his season in style.

Currently, Aslan Karatsev is on the 5th place in the 2021 ATP Race to Torino and he's one of the most-feared opponents this year. After spending almost his whole career on the Challenger Tour and outside of the Top 100 of the ATP Rankings, the 27-years-old Russian enjoyed his breakthrough during his 9th year on Tour.

It all started at the qualification for the 2021 Australian Open when Karatsev defeated Nakashima, Purcel and Muller. Then, he put up a great show in Australia to reach the semifinals where he lost to Novak Djokovic. Later, he has also won his first ATP title in Dubai and reached already 27th place in the ATP Rankings. Recently, he spoke about his success, when he said:

“It’s not just happening right now, there is [a lot of] work that was done before [to get here],” Karatsev said. “I had some injuries before and some troubles, and now we’re doing a good job with my coach. It’s been two and a half years and it’s just paying off in 2021.

“It’s not like it’s coming all of a sudden from nowhere. It’s coming from the hard work every day, and it’s a long process. You have to be there every day and work hard.”

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“Here, I've been playing a really good level in all my matches,” Karatsev said. “From the beginning it was a three-set match, and from match to match that gave me more and more confidence. But it’s also a process, you have to work and be in practice every day and improve your game, mentally and physically. It’s not like it’s all arriving right now and that’s it."

“I think it could be from the match yesterday, I wasn’t there in every point,” Karatsev said in his post-match press conference. “But all credit to him, he played fantastic in the end and served really well. I couldn’t really serve or go for the big shots, going around the forehand.

“At the tie-break, he was serving unbelievable. I wasn’t there. There were some points where I wasn’t there, and he did well in the tie-break as well, pushing me to the limit.”