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Karatsev, Sinner, Kontaveit triumph again

  • Matt Trollope

Australian Open 2021 semifinalist Aslan Karatsev is projected to make his top 20 debut after winning the ATP Kremlin Cup title in Moscow at the weekend.

Karatsev, 28, beat Marin Cilic 6-2 6-4 in Sunday’s final on home soil to continue his incredible season, one which he started ranked outside the top 100.

Karatsev went 20-5 to open the season, a purple patch that included his semifinal finish at Melbourne Park, his first ATP title in Dubai, and a run to the final on clay in Belgrade.

Despite a lean period in which he failed to win back-to-back matches from mid May to late August, Karatsev has again caught fire, winning eight of his past 10 matches and another trophy in his late-blooming career.

“It is a dream come true. It is a tournament where I have played in qualifying at and now I am winning the tournament,” said Karatsev, who had not played in Moscow since 2016 and where he had only once won a main-draw match, as a qualifier in 2015.

Also enjoying a stellar 2021 are Jannik Sinner and Anett Kontaveit, who joined Karatsev as title winners on the same day.

Kontaveit won the women’s trophy in Moscow with a 4-6 6-4 7-5 triumph over Russia’s Ekaterina Alexandrova, her third WTA title from her past six tournaments.

Kontaveit’s vast reserves of confidence shone through as she rebounded from 6-4 4-0 down to snatch the title from the Russian.

"I was just trying to stay in it as long as I could, and I never really gave up,” said Kontaveit, who has won 21 of her past 23 matches.

“I was just trying to fight for every point as much as I could. If I would have lost 6-4, 6-2 or whatever, I knew I tried everything”

The result sees Kontaveit jump from 15th to ninth place in the 2021 points race to the WTA Finals, a tournament for which the top eight players qualify.

Should she win this week’s title in Cluj-Napoca in Romania, she would leapfrog Ons Jabeur into eighth place and make her debut at the lucrative season-ending event in Guadalajara.

Sinner, meanwhile, became the youngest player since Novak Djokovic 14 years ago to win five ATP titles.

Sinner’s 6-2 6-2 demolition of Diego Schwartzman in the Antwerp final is his fourth ATP trophy of the season and will see him rise to a career-high ranking of world No.11.

“I think I played well the whole tournament, to be honest, from the first point to the last point,” said Sinner, who, like Karatsev, won the title without losing a set.

Another title winner at the weekend was American Ann Li, who won her first WTA trophy with a victory in the Tenerife final over Camila Osorio of Colombia. 

Li is expected to break into the top 50 for the first time following her triumph.