Aslan Karatsev

Aslan Kazbekovich Karatsev (Аслан Казбекович Карацев, Хъарацаты Хъазыбеджы фырт Аслан; born 4 September 1993) is a Russian professional tennis player.

He reached a career-high singles ATP ranking of world No. 14 on 7 February 2022, and peaked at No. 76 in the doubles rankings on 16 May 2022.

In February 2021, Karatsev went through qualifiers for the Australian Open.

Karatsev, who was unseeded and beat four seeded players to reach the final, joined Wayne Ferreira (1995) and Thomas Muster (1997) in this achievement.

As a result, he entered the top 30 of the ATP singles rankings for the first time in his career.

On 24 April 2021, Karatsev defeated the world No. 1 Novak Djokovic on his home court at the Serbia Open to reach the final.

Karatsev played his first junior match in September 2007 at the age of 14 at a grade 5 tournament in Russia.

Although being his junior debut, it would be his only junior tournament until May 2009 where he started to play consistently in junior tennis.

In his first main draw of a major, ranked 114th, he defeated 8th seed Diego Schwartzman, 20th seed Félix Auger-Aliassime and 18th seed Grigor Dimitrov to reach the semifinals.

Karatsev is the first man in the Open Era to reach the semifinals in his Grand Slam debut.

In March 2021, he won his first ATP title at the Qatar Open with Andrey Rublev in doubles.

A week later, as a wildcard, Karatsev won his first ATP singles title at the 2021 Dubai Open, beating South African Lloyd Harris in the final.

From 2011 to 2013 he was coached by Andrey Kesarev.

Karatsev fluently speaks Russian, Hebrew, and English, and holds dual Russian-Israeli citizenship.

He made his junior grand slam debut at the 2011 Junior French Open after qualifying for the main draw but lost in the first round.

He then participated in 2011 Junior Wimbledon with resulted in him again losing in the first round and then the 2011 Junior US Open where he won his first round match but lost in the second round.

In doubles, he was known for partnering good friend Evgeny Karlovskiy in most tournaments and the pair made the quarterfinals of the 2011 Junior French Open.

He ended his junior career after the 2011 US Open with a career-high ranking of No. 47 (attained on August 8, 2011) and a win–loss record of 76–48 in singles and 26–16 in doubles.

Junior Grand Slam results – Singles:

Australian Open: A (-)

French Open: 1R (2011)

Wimbledon: 1R (2011)

US Open: 2R (2011)

Junior Grand Slam results – Doubles:

Australian Open: A (-)

French Open: QF (2011)

Wimbledon: 1R (2011)

US Open: 2R (2011)

At the 2020 Summer Olympics, he won the silver medal with Elena Vesnina in mixed doubles.

Karatsev was born in Vladikavkaz.

His father Kazbek Karatsev is an ethnic Ossetian and former footballer, and his mother Svetlana Karatseva is a medical doctor.

Aslan has an older sister named Zarina.

Karatsev's grandfather on his mother's side is Jewish.

When Karatsev was three years old he and his parents moved to Israel, making aliyah, and they lived in Israel for the next nine years.

He started playing tennis there, in Tel Aviv-Jaffa.

His first coach was Vladimir Rabinovich.

His mother and sister live in Holon, Israel.

Karatsev speaks fluent Hebrew, and says that Israel still feels like home.

When he was 12, he moved back to Russia, with his father, because of funding limitations in Israel.

He moved to Taganrog where his new coaches were Alexandr Kuprin and Ivan Potapov.