Karen Khachanov is back in the winner's circle after beating Yoshihito Nishioka in the final of the 2023 Zhuhai Championships.
Khachanov missed much of this summer, including Wimbledon, due to an injury at the Halle Open. The unfortunate injury devastated the Russian because he was playing some of the best tennis he had ever played this year and was on a roll leading up to the grass season.
The return should have happened sooner than it did, but the birth of his second child delayed that, and ultimately we saw him at the US Open. Predictably, he struggled and crashed out early, but he's back to looking like his former self this week.
The conditions in Asia suit his game really well, and he demonstrated it this week with an impressive run in Zhuhai that ultimately saw him face Nishioka in the final. It was a very competitive match, but also showed how impressive the Russian can be.
He's always had the talent, yet his game was prone to a lot of momentum swings, which is not good in tennis. You need consistency, and that's what he's been demonstrating this year. He did it again in this match, outlasting Nishioka in two very different sets.
The first one was a very impressive one from the Russian as he served really well and blasted 23 winners, 11 more than Nishioka. He needed every one of them as the Japanese player battled from a breakdown to force a tiebreak.
Khachanov stepped up and took it 7-2, outplaying his opponent easily in the second set 6-1. It was a good win for Khachanov, who was amazing all week, winning his first trophy this year. It's actually his first trophy since 2018, when he bested Novak Djokovic in the Paris Masters final. That's still the biggest one he won to date.
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