Khachanov Completes Perfect Week In Doha By Beating Teenager Mensik In Final

| by Zachary Wimer

Karen Khachanov is back in the champion's circle as the Russian finished off a good run at the 2024 Qatar Open in Doha with the trophy.

While Khachanov put together a really impressive week of tennis, he wasn't the main story of this ATP 250 event, as he's one of the established players, and in all fairness, winning an ATP 250 tournament also likely isn't his biggest career achievement, even though it's an important win for his confidence and rankings.

The story of this event was actually his final opponent, Jakub Mensik, who played amazingly this week. He downed a couple of notable players, including Andrey Rublev and Gael Monfils, en route to the final.

In the final, the 18-year-old had to play against a much-experienced player who was generally very solid. Khachanov is generally very solid, so to beat him, opponents often need to find something special.

Unfortunately for him, Mensik didn't have that in this match, but he gave it a good try. The opening set was pretty close, as it ultimately ended up in a spectacular tie-break.

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Khachanov has a bit of a habit of playing these long tiebreaks because he played one of those against Alexei Popyrin as well. Much like in that match, the Russian ended up winning it as he took it 14-12, which was in many ways the most important moment of the match.

It was pretty expected that the player who lost the opening set would drop off a bit in the second set. As it was the less experienced player, it was even more expected, and exactly that happened as Khachanov took an early break and never let go from there.

His super solid ways were more than enough for him to cruise to the finish line comfortably. It's a deserved title for the Russian, who played a pretty clean match.

Mensik was not bad by any means, but he didn't win the crucial points he needed to win, and that's why he lost. That's what happens when you play a super solid player like Khachanov.

The final score was 7-6(12), 6-4 for the Russian, who will celebrate his first title of the 2024 season.

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