Karen Khachanov made one of the best starts to 2023 of any player on the ATP Tour. But injury brought his season to a screeching halt and on Wednesday he confirmed that he is still not 100 per cent.

The 27-year-old played competitively for the first time since Roland Garros at this week’s Western & Southern Open, where he reached the second round of the doubles event with Robin Haase. Khachanov withdrew from singles.

“It feels great [to be back]. I’m really happy to say I was missing it. I was missing the tour, missing coming to the tournaments, competing. But unfortunately, I still couldn’t play the singles this week,” Khachanov told ATPTour.com. “I’m still not ready, not really 100 per cent. I tried to play doubles, which was nice. I felt again a little bit of the atmosphere, even starting with doubles, and I’m just hoping really to keep improving day by day and to come back to the full competition soon.”

Khachanov was dealing with one injury since the Australian Open. During that time, he reached the semi-finals in Melbourne and Miami, and later reached the quarter-finals at Roland Garros.

“I was playing during these four or five months with this pain, with painkillers. That injury caused the other one. I had a fracture in my sacrum bone under the lower back and I had a fracture in the pubic bone. This is initially from the groin pain,” Khachanov said. “I was playing with the pain and I just made it worse and now the recovery process is way tougher and way longer than it could have been.

“The sacrum bone, I felt actually after the [fourth-round Roland Garros] match with [Lorenzo] Sonego. Basically the quarter-final match with Novak [Djokovic], I was playing with two pains. I don’t know how I did it, but I played really well, actually. People with whom I shared this info, they’re still surprised because I didn’t show any sign of pain.”

For seven weeks, Khachanov did not touch a racquet and for a period of time it was painful to walk. But on a positive note, his second child was born one month ago.

“That was very happy. At the end of the day, this time was tough in a way from the injury but at the same time happy time with my family, with my kids,” Khachanov said. “Now I have two sons and I was happy that I had family by my side. I was resting, playing with my older son and doing home routines. Totally different.

“Then after I started step by step doing [work] in the gym. Then I started to do pool exercise, then slowly I was running and then on court and now here I am in Cincinnati.”

In the first five months of the season, Khachanov appeared poised for a charge to the Nitto ATP Finals. Now he is just hoping to be able to play singles again soon.

“It’s tough but you have to deal with it. What can I do? Sometimes things are out of my control and if I would be thinking more about it, I would just get more disappointed and more sad,” Khachanov said. “So that’s why I think it’s better not to think about it and for sure, for me, the goal is to be healthy and as soon as I can be healthy and at my 100 per cent. I’ll try to keep the form. I hope I can come back and be in the same position where I left.”

Khachanov will head to New York and continue working hard with the hope of competing at the season’s final major, where he made the last four one year ago.

“It’s still under question and I cannot currently confirm either way,” Khachanov said. “I will take it day by day now and really see where I am when the US Open is going to start and then make a decision.”

Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah announced on Wednesday that they have set a date for the end of their respective careers in professional tennis. The Colombian two-time Grand Slam champions will play their last three events at the US Open, the Davis Cup series against Ukraine, and an ATP Challenger Tour event in Bogota that starts 25 September.

“This is not a knee-jerk reaction or something we decided from one day to the next. ‘Sebas’ and I have decided to complete a cycle in tennis,” Farah explained in a press conference in Bogota on Wednesday. “Obviously it’s a decision that brings a lot of emotions with it. It’s not easy, but now we want to prioritise new things in our lives.”

Cabal added, “We feel like we’re doing the right thing. It’s a difficult moment. We’ve been playing this sport for 30 years, dreaming of life at the top. It’s hard to say goodbye, but everything comes to an end, and this is a good point, we feel it is a good moment. It’s not because of the results. It’s because of the time for each of us.”

The end point started to materialise at the end of 2022. Family had already started to take up more space in both of their lives, and the wear and tear of so many years competing did nothing to make up for the time away from home. Nor did the injuries, such as the shoulder issue Farah picked up at the 2022 US Open, forcing him to have injections to play throughout 2023.

“The last two years we didn’t have a single week where we were both physically healthy,” Cabal said. “And although sport is in our blood, the wear and tear is a product of a long career. We started to analyse it and we said, ‘2023 will be the last year’. Now we just have to thank the world of tennis, life, God. We’ve had many experiences. We are very happy and at peace because we gave our all.”

Cabal, 37, and Farah, 36, picked up their first main-draw win as a pair on the ATP Tour at Wimbledon 2011. From there, they built a career that is unparalleled in Colombian and South American tennis. They won 19 tour-level titles, enjoying success in every possible category on the tour.

After lifting trophies at ATP 250 and ATP 500 events, ‘Colombian Power’ claimed their first ATP Masters 1000 by winning Rome in 2018. A year later, they successfully defended their title at the Foro Itálico, just before joining a far more exclusive club.

At Wimbledon in 2019, Cabal and Farah became the first Hispanic team to win the trophy in the Open Era. “Wimbledon was the most amazing thing we won in our careers,” Cabal said.

Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah win Wimbledon in 2019.” />
^{Juan Sebastian Cabal (left) and Robert Farah win Wimbledon in 2019. Credit: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images}

The Wimbledon final five-set win against Nicolas Mahut and Edouard Roger-Vasselin took them to No. 1 in the Pepperstone ATP Doubles Rankings for the first time. Months later, they won their second Grand Slam title at the US Open, beating Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos in the final.

“We were so fortunate to win two Grand Slam titles. It was the product of growing into the process, challenging ourselves every day to get better, of so much discipline,” Farah said.

That motivation helped them end 2019 as the No. 1 pair in the world, and to play in three Nitto ATP Finals, the season-end event that includes only the best eight teams of the year. They were twice semi-finalists (2018, 2019) at the Nitto ATP Finals.

Part of their legacy also includes the consistency of playing together. In a discipline that normally comes with so many changes of partner, Cabal and Farah considered themselves an inseparable team. On Wednesday, still side-by-side, they decided to announce their full stop on their respective careers in a sport that has given them everything.

One of the most memorable moments of the season came during the trophy ceremony in Umag, where Alexei Popyrin defeated three-time major champion Stan Wawrinka in the final. Wawrinka was so close to claiming his first ATP Tour trophy since 2017, but was unable to finish off Popyrin.

During his remarks to the crowd, the Swiss was reduced to tears.

“Guys, thank you so much,” Wawrinka said. “I know it’s so stupid to cry, but I love this sport so much and you make it really special.”

Two weeks later, the 38-year-old is back in action at the Western & Southern Open, where he upset 2022 US Open semi-finalist Frances Tiafoe to reach the third round. The former World No. 3 has fond memories of his emotional moment in Croatia.

“It was great. It’s always good to play a final,” Wawrinka told ATPTour.com. “Of course, I’m disappointed and sad to have lost the final. You always want to win the final, but it was a good tournament. Good to be back [playing] on a Sunday of the tournament. And again, things keep going. Now I’m in Cincinnati and I’m happy to play in America.”

 

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Wawrinka is back in the Top 50 of the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings at No. 47 and has earned wins this year against stars including Holger Rune, Andy Murray and now Tiafoe. 

The Swiss has earned 16 tour-level titles and 563 wins over the course of his career, but injuries have set him back in recent years. At the start of the season, Wawrinka was World No. 148 and one year ago he was outside the Top 300.

Not only has the Lausanne native needed to rehab his body, but also his confidence.

“I think it’s a bit of both. In tennis, it’s a big puzzle,” Wawrinka said. “You have the fitness side, you have the tennis side, you have the mental side too and everything has to be together. You have to push yourself every day to improve.

“I’ve been pushing myself to keep trying to improve and I’m finally playing better, winning matches and hopefully I can keep going.”

Fans flocked to Grandstand to watch Wawrinka play some of his best tennis against 10th seed Tiafoe in the final men’s match Wednesday evening. The crowd was so packed, some people stood in nearby staircases to catch a glimpse of the action.

“It’s amazing. That’s one of the main reasons why I keep playing,” Wawrinka said. “It’s always special. Yesterday night there were a lot of people at the match and also it’s great for me, I’m super happy with that.”

Second seeds Ivan Dodig and Austin Krajicek made a fast start to their Western & Southern Open title campaign on Thursday when they downed Robin Haase and Karen Khachanov 6-1, 6-4.

Aiming for their fifth title of the year, Dodig and Krajicek saved eight of nine break points faced to reach the quarter-finals, where they will next meet Marcelo Melo and Alexander Zverev or Hubert Hurkacz and Mate Pavic.

The Croatian-American pair Dodig and Krajicek, who won their maiden major team title at Roland Garros, have a chance at rising to No. 1 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Doubles Teams Rankings this week if they win Cincinnati and Wesley Koolhof and Neal Skupski do not make it past the last eight. 

In other doubles action, Argentines Maximo Gonzalez and Andres Molteni upset third seeds and defending champions Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury 7-6(4), 5-7, 10-7. Gonzalez and Molteni have won four tour-level titles this season: Cordoba, Rio de Janeiro, Barcelona and Washington, D.C.

Seventh seeds Kevin Krawietz and Tim Puetz ousted Felix Auger-Aliassime and Adrian Mannarino 6-1, 6-4 after winning 21 of 24 of their first-serve points. Hubert Hurkacz and Mate Pavic defeated Australian Open champions Rinky Hijikata and Jason Kubler 5-7, 6-4, 10-4.

Wild cards Lorenzo Musetti and Lorenzo Sonego rallied past eighth seeds Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos 3-6, 7-5, 10-3. Max Purcell and Andrey Rublev, who were quarter-finalists last week in Toronto, overcame Lloyd Glasspool and Harri Heliovaara 7-6(10), 7-5.

Playing in his first tournament since a resurgent final run in Umag, Stan Wawrinka powered past home favourite Frances Tiafoe on Wednesday night at the Western & Southern Open. The Swiss wild card dominated from the baseline in a 6-3, 6-4 victory against the 10th-seeded American, wrapping up the emphatic upset in one hour, 18 minutes.

“It’s been probably the best match of the season, I think the most complete match,” Wawrinka said after improving to 6-1 in his past seven outings. “I was feeling good, moving well, serving well, being aggressive, staying with him, fighting. I’m super happy and hopefully I can keep playing that well.”

The victory is Wawrinka’s second this season against a Top 10 opponent, with the first coming against Holger Rune in Indian Wells. The oldest player in the Cincinnati men’s singles draw at age 38, Wawrinka is the third oldest player in ATP Masters 1000 history (since 1990) to reach the Round of 16, behind two such runs by Ivo Karlovic.

The win also moved the Swiss up four places into the Top 50 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings at No. 47. He will enter the Top 40 with a victory against Max Purcell on Thursday.

Wawrinka improved to 4-0 in his Lexus ATP Head2Head against Tiafoe with a vintage display that was anchored by his brilliant one-handed backhand. The Swiss dictated off that baseline wing for much of the evening, and even when Tiafoe gained the upper hand in the exchanges, the picture-perfect groundstroke proved a great equaliser.

Tiafoe spent the majority of the match behind on the scoreboard, dropping serve early in both sets. Wawrinka won 96 per cent (23/24) of his first-serve points, aided by 11 aces, while punishing his opponent’s second serve for a 67 per cent win rate (20/30) on the American’s second delivery. The Swiss star finished the match with 22 winners to just 10 unforced errors, and he won all six of his net approaches.

Next up for Wawrinka is a meeting with wild card Purcell on Thursday. The Aussie was a 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 winner against fifth seed Casper Ruud earlier on Wednesday.

“I watched him play. He’s a really good player,” Wawrinka said of the World No. 70, who qualified and beat Felix Auger-Aliassime last week in Toronto. “He’s coming in this year, he’s winning a lot of matches. He played well last week. He’s beating top players, he beat Ruud today. It’s going to be a super interesting match. 

“We never played each other, we never practised against each other. He’s a dangerous player so again I will have to play my best tennis to win.”

Alexei Popyrin was sitting on the couch Tuesday morning inside the players’ lounge at the Lindner Family Tennis Centre in Cincinnati. Just shy of 11 a.m, the Australian’s phone rang. It was an ATP Tour manager, who was just a 10-second walk away.

“I was on the couch, literally switched on the PS5 to play FIFA with my physio, because we have a lot of FIFA battles,” Popyrin told ATPTour.com. “I got the call from the ATP Tour managers telling me that I have to be on court in five minutes. And I had just come into the centre literally 10 minutes before that.”

At 10:54 a.m., Karen Khachanov withdrew from the tournament. The first lucky loser, Daniel Altmaier, had already replaced Khachanov’s scheduled opponent, Andy Murray. Popyrin took Khachanov’s place in the draw and was given a brief period to physically warm up before heading out to the court.

Just two days earlier, Popyrin had lost in the final round of qualifying at the Western & Southern Open to countryman Max Purcell, who is also still in the tournament. Popyrin defeated Altmaier 6-7(5), 6-4, 6-4 to advance to the second round.

“It’s kind of something you don’t have every day. So I think if anything, it gave me less pressure because I didn’t have any expectations on myself, because I knew I didn’t do everything possible to be ready for this match because I didn’t know I was going to play,” Popyrin said. “So kind of had less expectations of myself, and I was relaxed when I came out there. In the first set, I told myself, ‘Even if I lose it, it’s kind of your warmup for the match.’”

Popyrin’s next scheduled opponent, Nicolas Jarry, withdrew from the tournament to rush home for the birth of his child. From out of qualifying, Popyrin was suddenly into the third round of the main draw and $88,805 richer. He is now at a career-high No. 47 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings.

“Just before we left our house, I told my coach, ‘Today’s going to be a long day, because we might have to stay here for a long time.’ And we were prepared for that,” Popyrin said. “We weren’t too excited getting into the car, because we knew it was going to be a very long day. But turns out it was quite a short day. We were in and out and played our match and we were back in the house by by 3 p.m.”

It has been a memorable stretch for the 24-year-old. In the last week of July, he triumphed in Umag for his second ATP Tour title. The Aussie battled past former World No. 3 Stan Wawrinka for the trophy in a match he called “a dream come true”.

Watch Umag Final Highlights:

“It feels good. I think when you do all the right things, then good things will happen to you eventually. And for me, I know for the past year, I’ve been doing everything the right way. I’ve been working the right way, I’ve been eating the right way, working out the right way,” Popyrin said. “When you do things the right way, good things eventually come to you. And that’s what happened in Umag.

“I won my second title and then here, my first hard-court event since March, I’m in the third round of a Masters [1000] because of some lucky events. But also I put myself in the situation to be in those positions. So for me, that’s how I look at these things.”

Now Popyrin has a big opportunity to reach his first ATP Masters 1000 quarter-final against World No. 60 Emil Ruusuvuori. But he is not thinking too far ahead.

“I think it’s like any other tournament. You prepare for the matches the way you always do, and that’s it,” Popyrin said. “I do have work left to be done. I didn’t think that two days ago, but I do now and it’s an easy mental shift because we’re so used to doing it.”

When Tommy Paul steps on court Thursday at the Western & Southern Open, he will do so to face Carlos Alcaraz, the No. 1 player in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings. For many players, that would be an intimidating experience.

There is good news for the American: He just defeated the Spaniard last week in Toronto.

“It helps a little bit, but at the same time, it probably doesn’t hurt him,” Paul told a small group of media after his second-round win over Ugo Humbert. “He probably feels less pressure this week to play me than he did last week. So I think it’s going to be a very, very tricky and tough match. But I’m really looking forward to this.”

Paul leads Alcaraz 2-1 in their Lexus ATP Head2Head series, with both his victories coming at Canada’s ATP Masters 1000 event. Last week, Alcaraz battled back to force a deciding set, but the Australian Open semi-finalist’s aggression ruled the day.

How will the 26-year-old balance reusing a winning game plan with preventing his opponent from fully adjusting?

“You can’t do the same exact thing in any given match. I didn’t do the same thing for the whole match last time I played him and I’m not going to do the same thing tomorrow that I did last week. And same for him,” Paul said. “He’s not going to do the same exact thing. He’s going to probably look to change things up more than I am. But at the same time, with me and him I really do feel like it’s about who starts the point on offence more often.”

Neither player in Toronto was able to dominate behind his serve, with both failing to top 65 per cent of service points won. In their clash this year in Miami, which Alcaraz won in straight sets, the Spaniard won 75 per cent of his service points.

Regardless of how the strategic element of the clash plays out, Paul is excited for another opportunity to play on a big stage — the match will be on centre court — against the No. 1-ranked player in the world.

“He’s obviously an unbelievable player,” Paul said. “But when I play him, it’s just like there’s more energy around the match and it’s more exciting and I’m more excited to play those matches. So I have a lot of fun playing those matches.”

Paul is also confident having reached his first ATP Masters 1000 semi-final at the National Bank Open Presented by Rogers. But the 14th seed does not believe his performance there necessarily applies in Cincinnati.

“The conditions here are so, so different that when I got here, and when I played my first-round match, it felt like I was starting completely from scratch again,” Paul said. “I think I got confidence from the match today. I played honestly an unreal first set, I didn’t miss too many balls at all. So I’m going to have to play a good match tomorrow and I plan to come out and play aggressive.”

Quietly, there is more at stake than a match win for Paul against Alcaraz. The American is quickly closing on the Top 10 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings. The World No. 13 is 25 points behind No. 12 Alex de Minaur and 275 points behind No. 11 Karen Khachanov. De Minaur lost to Gael Monfils on Wednesday and Khachanov withdrew before playing his first match. Every win draws Paul closer.

“I think everyone else pays attention to it a lot more than I do. It’s hard to not hear it. Like when I first showed up here, I see Frances and he’s in the locker room like, ‘Man, if anyone’s going to bump me out of the Top 10, I wanted it to be you,’” Paul said. “I was like, ‘Dude, I wasn’t even thinking about that.’ Like when I was playing [Jannik] Sinner. I had to beat Sinner [in the Toronto semi-finals] and then win another match to get Top 10. I’m not really thinking about it too much.

“I’m 13. I still have to get to 12 and then 11 and then 10. So I’m worried about getting to 12 right now, and I’m worried about winning my match tomorrow.”

There was little to separate Stefanos Tsitsipas and Ben Shelton on Wednesday in a sharp-serving shootout on the lightning-fast courts of Cincinnati.

It was the fourth-seeded Tsitsipas who ultimately raised his game in a pair of tie-breaks for a hard-earned 7-6 (3), 7-6(2) victory at the Western & Southern Open. The Greek made his experience count against his #NextGenATP opponent, staying consistent at the tailend of both sets to wrap a one-hour, 43-minute triumph.

“He’s still relatively young and he has that free spirit in the way he approaches his game,” said Tsitsipas. “It came down to two tiebreakers and I was very confident if I made a few returns back and got him to rally a bit, things might go my way, and it ended up so. I was tough, for sure. I was tough as nails, and that gave me the win today.”

Hellas hang time ⛹️‍♂️🇬🇷@steftsitsipas | @CincyTennis | #CincyTennis pic.twitter.com/YaJnz8lqpH

— ATP Tour (@atptour) August 16, 2023

There may be some contrasts between Shelton’s kicking lefty serve and Tsitsipas’ flatter delivery, but both proved extremely effective in the pair’s maiden Lexus ATP Head2Head meeting. The American won an impressive 84 per cent (36/43) of points behind his first serve but was still outdone by Tsitsipas, who won 93 per cent (37/40) of points behind his first delivery. Neither player faced a break point in the match.

“Most of my service games, I felt like had that flow, that rhythm that I was seeking from the very beginning of the match,” said Tsitsipas. “It sort of progressed more and more. I’m happy with how I handled the rallies that I got to play after serving… He hits big, can serve big, so with these kinds of players you have to be 100 per cent there. There isn’t much of a gap that you can give them.”

Tsitsipas now holds an 11-5 record at the Western & Southern Open, where he enjoyed semi-final runs in 2020 and 2021 before reaching the championship match in 2022. He will next face Hubert Hurkacz in Ohio, after the Pole ended Borna Coric’s reign as Cincinnati champion with a 5-7, 6-3, 6-3 second-round win.

Wednesday’s triumph, combined with Jannik Sinner’s defeat to Dusan Lajovic, was a boost for Tsitsipas’ Nitto ATP Finals qualification hopes. The 25-year-old is fifth in the Pepperstone ATP Live Race To Turin, 660 points behind Sinner, and he will look to gain further ground on the Italian with another deep run in Cincinnati this week.

Casper Ruud could not join the Greek in the third round. Max Purcell downed Ruud 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 for his maiden Top 10 win.

The World No. 70 Purcell arrived in Cincinnati fresh from claiming his maiden ATP Masters 1000 main-draw win in Toronto. Just as had against Felix Auger-Aliassime in Canada, Purcell kept his cool to defeat a higher-ranked opponent. The Australian qualifier powered 38 winners, including 12 aces, to outlast the World No. 7 Ruud across two hours.

Now up 16 spots to No. 54 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings as a result of his run in Cincinnati, Purcell’s next test in Ohio is a third-round clash with 10th seed Frances Tiafoe or Stan Wawrinka.