and J. Bush, who wrote The Lord of the Rings, R· R. Tolkien's equally famous British writer C. S. Lewis has a famous fantasy literature called The Chronicles of Narnia. The first of these is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which tells the story of four children who wanted to escape the war during World War II and took refuge in the home of an old professor.
They found a magical wardrobe in the professor's house that led to a world called "Narnia". That world was enchanted by the White Witch, and it was winter all year round.
In the end, the four children, with the help of the lion king Aslan, brought Narnia back to life. In the process, they themselves have grown into wise and fearless warriors.
Back in time from the wizarding world, Russian men's tennis was once a bit like Narnia.
Kafernikov, Safin, Davydenko, Yuzni and others led the men's professional tennis scene in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but after them the tennis powerhouse was "frozen" in the men's side for a not short time.
Until the emergence of Khachanov and Medvedev, born in 1996, and Rublev, born in 1997, the younger of them, together with donskoy born in 1990, the "blue, red and white" tricolor flag began to appear in the final stages and key moments of the Grand Slam and major events.
In the ATP Cup in Melbourne in 2021, the strong Russian team pushed the defending champion Serbia, the championship favorite Spain and the homegrown Australia to win the cup. That was the first time they had won the men's team championship after the Davis Cups in 2002 and 2006, and a new chapter was being written.
The story is very open, but today's protagonist is not the above four, but a player named Aslan Karatsev who has the same name as the Lion King in Narnia.
He played in this year's ATP Cup with them, and despite losing 3 doubles matches, Medvedev spent a lot of time in a post-match interview to introduce him and described him as "Russia's secret weapon".
On the 9th matchday of the 2021 Australian Open, the weapon is no longer a secret.
The qualifier from Russia's North Caucasus region advanced to the semi-finals with a 2-6, 6-4, 6-1, 6-2 victory over former tournament final four Grigor Dimitrov. He also became the first player to reach the final four of the Grand Slam tournament for the first time since the Open era, and the first Russian player to reach the final four of the Australian Open since Safine in 2005.
"Karatsev! Who is Karatsev? In fact, such a question has already appeared as early as the third round of men's singles.
At that time, he defeated Italy's Gianluka Magel and Belarusian Igor Jerasimov 3-0, and then eliminated No. 9 seed Diego Schwartzman by the same score. Subsequently, he reversed the "post-00 star" Felix Auger-Aliasim 3-2.
This afternoon, Beijing time, Karatsev beat Dimitrov 3-0 and stepped into the semifinals. “From qualifying to the quarterfinal！” The ATP website wrote, accompanied by a clapping expression as well as the Russian flag.
His excellent performance and the game's pampered style of play made everyone jaw-dropping, but even after reaching the final four, he maintained his usual provincial posture.
"Yes, playing a Grand Slam for the first time, getting into a regular tournament for the first time, reaching the semi-finals for the first time, is really incredible. The first set was quite difficult and I struggled to find my rhythm and he suffered a back injury in the third set. ”
Compared with the match's nine ACEs, 34 winning points and a break success rate of 73%, Karatsev's post-match interview was too quiet and calm.
But that's his trait.
Originally from the Caucasus, he is accustomed to expressing himself by action rather than words. He is john McEnroe's pejorative "Nobody", and the "little people" often can't say anything beautiful when they debut on the big stage. All that needs to be said is that "continue to implement the guidelines formulated before the game and fight one by one."
Fight one by one. He has done this for the past decade of his career and 27 years of his life.
Aslan Karatsev was born on 4 September 1993 in Vladikavkaz, the capital of the Republic of North Ossetia-Aran in the Russian Federation. At the age of 3 he traveled to Israel with his family, where he first came into contact with tennis and fell in love with the sport. Since then, his talent has gradually shown itself, and he has been well guided by the local tennis school.
At the age of 12, he and his father returned to Russia for family financial reasons. After that, in order to get better training and competition, he was looking forward to it in Germany and Spain. For the last two years, he has been stationed in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, with the help of coach Yaor Jaski.
"About my life, the key word may be 'drifting'. Fortunately, I got to know Yaor, which allowed me to stop and focus on the tennis ball itself with peace of mind. Although he was about the same age as me, he helped me a lot in many ways, especially on an ideological level. ”
Based in Minsk, Karatsev has overcome major injuries in 2017 and the frustration of failing in his last nine Grand Slam appearances.
Last March, when the professional game had to be suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he was only 263rd in the ATP ranking. After the resumption in August, he defeated Robin Hassai, Gygis Veseli, Ernest Gulbis and Hugo Herbert in the ATP Prague Challenge I to advance to the final, losing to Stan Wawrinka 6-7, 4-6. In the same month, he won the Prague Challenge II, the second ATP Challenge of his career.
At the St. Petersburg Open in October, he reversed American acclaim Tenis Sandgren to win the Tour again since the 2015 Moscow Open. In the end, his world ranking was locked at 111th at the end of the 2020 season.
In the 2021 season, he stood out in the Men's Singles Qualifier at the Australian Open in Dubai to reach his first Grand Slam tournament. Then, the story is what we know — he broke into the men's singles final four, got $662,000 in prize money, and the ATP instant ranking came to 42nd.
He will then face the winners of Djokovic and A. Zverev in the semi-finals in a bid to move forward to the final. In the other half, his ATP Cup Russian teammates Rublev and Medvedev will compete for a place in the quarter-finals tomorrow, with the winner going to challenge the winners of Nadal and Tsitsipas.
"So, are you looking forward to the final between the Russian players?" The reporter struggled to get more useful words out of his mouth in order to describe his "dark horse story" in a colorful way.
"I try not to think about it, I just want to play game by game." This is Aslan Karatsev's standard answer, much like Aslan the Lion King in The Chronicles of Narnia.
He wasn't always with the kids, but everyone would slowly know his name. Because he was one of the reasons for the melting of the ice and snow in the world of Narnia, although he spent most of his time silently hiding in the jungle, it was he who was accumulating strength and waiting for an opportunity.