Madrid Open sees same match happen twice in rare shot at revenge

The Madrid Open will see a rare rematch in the men’s semi-final as Aslan Karatsev takes on Jan-Lennard Struff 10 days after beating the German in qualifying. Struff was able to reach the main draw as a lucky loser and upset Stefanos Tsitsipas on Thursday to set up his chance for revenge against the Russian.

The semi-final line-up in the men’s draw in Madrid has a familiar match on the schedule, as Stuff and Karatsev are set to do battle for the second time at the same tournament. It’s not unusual to see players who met in qualifying face off in the opening rounds of events – with qualifiers sometimes drawing each other or a lucky loser replacing a main draw player who withdrew.

But it’s a rare occurrence to see a qualifying match repeated so late into a tournament, especially one of the prestigious Masters 1000s. But the German and the world No 121 have made it happen after taking advantage of their spots in the main draw.

Struff had been enjoying a successful clay swing – also making the Monte Carlo quarter-final as a qualifier – but was upset by Karatsev in the second and final round of Madrid qualifying despite being the top seed. He was still able to get into the main draw following some withdrawals.

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The world No 65 has now defeated two seeds en route to the last four – 32nd seed Ben Shelton and world No 5 Tsitsipas, who he upset in a three-set battle on Thursday night. Karatsev also made the most of his spot as a qualifier, taking out top 30 opponents Botic van de Zandschulp, Alex de Minaur and second seed Daniil Medvedev.

The Russian was the first man to make it to the semi-final in the bottom half, as he beat another surprise Madrid star in Zhang Zhizhen on Thursday afternoon before awaiting the winner of Tsitsipas vs Struff. And the 33-year-old earned his second top five win of the season to set up a grudge match with his most recent conqueror.

While it will be their second meeting in 10 days, it will be their first in the main draw of an ATP event. And Struff is gunning for the chance to get some revenge over Karatsev after he was left feeling like he didn’t play his best tennis in their qualifying match.

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“Aslan is playing amazing this week so far and he beat me pretty easily in qualies I need to say,” he said after beating Tsitsipas 7-6(5) 5-7 6-3. “I didn’t play the best tennis in that match, but he made me play not good I feel like. I think we need to analyse it now, focus on the match tomorrow and I hope I can do better.”

Both men are also bidding to keep climbing up the rankings, with Struff now No 34 in the live standings while Karatsev is at No 51 – a staggering 70 spots above his current ranking of No 121. The Russian wants to keep going after regaining the top form that saw him reach the Australian Open semi-final in 2021 but said his competition was getting harder as the tournament went on.

“From the qualifying, match by match, it has got harder, so mentally you have to be there more. Because your opponent doesn’t give you any free points so you have to be there yourself. The important thing is now [to] recover well,” he said. But Karatsev will have the upper-hand in the semi-final, with the unique advantage of already beating Struff at the same event. 

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