No. 2 seed Karen Khachanov of Russia won a marathon first-set tiebreaker and advanced past Australia’s Alexei Popyrin 7-6 (12), 6-2 in the semifinals of the Qatar ExxonMobil Open on Friday in Doha.
Khachanov will face Jakub Mensik in the final after the Czech native beat Frenchman Gael Monfils 6-4, 1-6, 6-3.
Khachanov won the first four points of his first-set tiebreaker but let Popyrin right back in it, leading to a 6-5 deficit. The Russian saved the first of three set points he faced in the tiebreaker, but he did not finish the job until his fifth set point at 13-12.
Despite Popyrin having a 35-23 advantage in winners, Khachanov had just four unforced errors to Popyrin’s 14 and won 55.6 percent of the total points (79 of 142).
Mensik, who upset top-seeded Andrey Rublev of Russia in the previous round, saved nine of 12 break points against Monfils. Mensik is ranked No. 116 in the world.
–Field Level Media
