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By Giri Nathan
[vc_empty_space height="15px"]I have puzzled over Aslan Karatsev long enough that I no longer remember what the weirdest parts of this story are. I am too deep into this journey to look at it with any of my initial bewilderment. Is it the fact that this obscure Russian had three tour-level wins over the previous decade, but has 17 tour-level wins in the year 2021 alone? How about the fact that he was ranked No. 253 this time last year and is now ranked No. 27 in the world? And that he is doing all this at age 27? What about the way he cruised into the semifinal on his first-ever Slam, adapting to the rigor of best-of-five quickly enough to win five matches against top competition? Or his casual upgrade from dominating the Challenger circuit—which he had never before done—to dominating the ATP in the span of six months? Maybe it’s his scant five losses this year, all but one of which have come at the hands of a top 10 player in the world. Whatever it is, there is a man on my screen turning around his life fortunes at the apparent midpoint of his career, and he seems awfully chill about it, issuing calm platitudes about hard work and good health. Every week he raises the stakes of what would qualify as a surprising result. Slaying a No. 1 Novak Djokovic in your fifth-ever ATP match on clay? Sure. The game that first raised an eyebrow in February is now dominating the court week after week—it makes no sense, and it may well be my favorite tennis narrative in the brief time I have been writing them.