Historical: Karatsev signed a record that until now had no owner

Aslan Karatsev (121st in the ATP ranking) is surprising the entire world with his performance in Madrid. The Russian, coming from the classification, surpassed Raul Brancaccio (140°), Jan-Lennard Struff (65°), Laszlo Djere (70°), Botic Of The Sand Scallop (29°), Alex De Minaur (19°), Daniil Medvedev (3°) y Zhizhen Zhang (99th) to qualify for the semifinals in the Caja Mágica.

The most curious of all? Karatsev is the first tennis player in history to reach the Grand Slam and Masters 1000 semifinals coming from the Qualy. All a merit.

The previous feat was in the Australian Open 2021. At that time, the Russian was not well known in the tennis world. In fact, that was his first Major tournament of his. On that occasion he also entered the best four with brilliant victories against Diego Schwartzman, Felix-Auger Aliassime and Grigor Dimitrov. Finally, I would end up giving in to Novak Djokovic

After that great performance, the Russian fully immersed himself in the ATP circuit. He became 14th in the world and won 3 ATP titles (Dubai, Moscow and Sydney). However, it seemed that the best stage of his career had passed… until Madrid arrived.

The 29-year-old player entered this tournament with an irregular record of eight wins and the same number of losses. The Madrid clay suited him perfectly and he will want to continue making history. To do this, he must first defeat Struff o Tsitsipas to earn a place in the grand finale.

All the action in Madrid can be seen on ESPN on STAR+.