ATP Tournament in Washington, 2nd Round, Wednesday, 03.08.2022
There are still barely three weeks until the start of the US Open, but the tennis elite have already made their way towards America. In Washington, the density of stars is high, what about German participants?
There is one hopeful on American soil who has already cleared the first hurdle.
Dominik Koepfer has not had an easy year. Many injuries set him back, and consequently a downward trend began in the world rankings. He has been back in the game for two months now, but the results are improving only slowly.
From Wimbledon to Newport, there were three defeats right in the first round, it took until the tournament in Indianapolis before Koepfer finally got to know the feeling of victory again.
Despite the close 5-7, 6-7 against Aleksandar Kovacevic, he was satisfied, finally he was in a quarter-final again. Koepfer stayed on, also showing in Atlanta that he is on the road to recovery.
He defeated Borna Gojo and Donald Young outright, against James Duckworth he was eliminated after a great fight and a 1-6, 6-7, 3-6. In his first appearance in Washington, the 28-year-old then had to struggle through the qualifiers.
But he did that with flying colours. Ryan Colby was outclassed, 6-0, 6-0 gave him a lot of confidence. Shintaro Mochizuki was also sent home without losing a set.
But his performance in the 1st round of the main draw against Soon-woo Kwon was especially strong. After a 3-6 in the first set, he came back wonderfully and won a well-deserved 6-3, 6-4. A lot of work, but also the certainty: his nerves are back.
At 1.80m, the rather short player will now duel for the first time with Karen Khachanov, who is almost 20 centimetres taller. In terms of serve, this does not speak in his favour, which is probably also the opinion of the German bettors.
1.30 to 3.30 – the odds are clear, but not so one-sided that everyone expects a German embarrassment. Karen Khachanov returned to the court in Hamburg after being ruled out of Wimbledon.
He managed to beat Jan-Lennard Struff and Lorenzo Sonego here, but the 0-6, 2-6 loss to Carlos Alcaraz was very clear. Khachanov is seeded seventh in Washington, so he should at least make the quarter-finals.
In his last two participations in this tournament, he failed directly in the first round, so his appearance on Wednesday is not under particularly good omens. Although Khachanov is one of the greatest players on the tour, he still needs to improve his service.
On the fast grass, his scores were quite good, but the recent ones went down considerably. By the way, it is interesting that the Russian will now meet a German for the third time in a row. The score is currently 1-1, will he be able to take the lead?
My Koepfer Khachanov tip
There are some strong players serving in Washington, the US Open is not far away after all. Dominik Koepfer has no ambitions towards the title this week or at the upcoming Grand Slam, but is always looking to improve.
His recent performances all showed an improvement, but he is still not quite his old self. In my analysis, I could see that Karen Khachanov has been in much better shape before.
The results were okay, but when too strong opponents came, there were brutal defeats. That’s why I trust Dominik Koepfer to put Khachanov in a tough fight and guess:
We see more than 20,5 Games!
