Aslan Karatsev continued his excellent performance at the Australian Open as he stunned Grigor Dimitrov 2-6, 6-4, 6-1, 6-2 on Tuesday. He became the fifth qualifier to make it to the top four of a men\u2019s Grand Slam in the open era.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an unbelievable feeling,\u201d the 27-year-old Karatsev said. \u201cOf course, it\u2019s the first time. First time in the main draw. First-time semis. It\u2019s incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n
The world number 114 composed himself after an error-filled first set to defeat the 8th seed at Melbourne Park.<\/p>\n
The Russian tightened his game making Dimitrov shell-shocked and pounded shots after the net-faltering on serve in the 30 degree Celsius heat.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really tough in the beginning for me, to hold my nerves,\u201d Karatsev said. \u201cIt was tricky. I tried to play in the second set, to find a way how to play. In the third set \u2026 played better.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, the 29-year-old Bulgarian took a medical timeout for treatment on his back after losing the third set. But the result did not change as Karatsev became the lowest-ranked player to reach a Grand Slam semi-final for two decades.<\/p>\n
Karatsev will either play defending champion Novak Djokovic or Alexander Zverev in the semi-finals.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Aslan Karatsev continued his excellent performance at the Australian Open as he stunned Grigor Dimitrov 2-6, 6-4, 6-1, 6-2 on\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":138,"featured_media":37773,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1466,1465,689,1421,1464,203,202],"class_list":["post-17025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-alexander-zverev","tag-aslan-karatsev","tag-australian-open","tag-grand-slam","tag-grigor-dimitrov","tag-novak-djokovic","tag-tennis"],"reading_time":"1 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/138"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}