Who is Aslan Karatsev? 10 things to know about a shock quarterfinalist

Breakthroughs don’t come much bigger than Aslan Karatsev’s run at the 2021 Australian Open. The 114th-ranked Russian came through qualifying to make his Grand Slam debut, and hasn't stopped. After stunning No. 8 seed Diego Schwartzman in the third round, 6-3, 6-3, 6-3, and No. 20 seed Felix Auger-Aliassime in the fourth round, 3-6, 1-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-4, Karatsev is incredibly into the tournament's final eight.

Karatsev was asked after his win over Auger-Aliassime on Sunday how he felt when the match was over.

“Amazing. Amazing. It was a big win from 2-0 down [in sets] and emotionally it was tough,” he said. “Yeah, it’s a good feeling.”

Awaiting Karatsev in the quarterfinals will be the No. 18 seed, Grigor Dimitrov, who posted a fairly surprisingly win of his own, over No. 3 seed Dominic Thiem.

Here are 10 things to know about the 27-year-old Vladikavkaz native’s run in Melbourne:

1. He’s the first man to reach the quarterfinals in his Grand Slam debut in almost 25 years. Alex Radulescu was the last player to achieve the feat, at Wimbledon in 1996. The Romanian ended up losing in the last eight to MaliVai Washington, the eventual runner-up.

2. He’s just the seventh man in the Open Era to reach the quarterfinals in his first major. The other six are Harold Solomon (1972 French Open), Brad Drewett (1976 Australian Open), Rodney Harmon (1982 US Open), Paul Annacone (1984 Wimbledon), Brett Steven (1993 Australian Open) and Radulescu.

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3. He’s the lowest-ranked man to reach the Australian Open quarterfinals in 30 years. Patrick McEnroe, who was also ranked No. 114, made it to the semifinals in 1991, where he fell to Boris Becker.

4. He’s the lowest-ranked man to reach the quarterfinals of any major since the 2016 US Open. Juan Martin del Potro made the last eight in Flushing Meadows in 2016 as a No. 142-ranked wild card.

5. He’s the first man to reach the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam as a qualifier in almost 10 years. The last was Bernard Tomic at the 2011 Wimbledon tournament.

6. This was the 10th major where Karatsev tried to qualify. He lost in the qualies of Wimbledon in 2014, at all four majors in 2015, every major except Wimbledon in 2016, and at the French Open in 2020.

7. His wins over No. 9 Schwartzman and No. 19 Auger-Aliassime were his first two wins over Top 40 players. He only had one Top 50 win before this week, coming last fall at the indoor event in St. Petersburg, against No. 48-ranked Tennys Sandgren.

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8. He had beaten Auger-Aliassime before, on the Challenger tour. The two played twice before at Challengers: Auger-Alissime winning in Tashkent in 2018; Karatsev winning in Rennes in 2019.

9. His three-hour, 25-minute victory over the Canadian on Sunday was his first career comeback from two sets to love down. And it was first five-set tour-level match, period.

10. He was a part of the Russian team that captured the ATP Cup last week. Karatsev played all three doubles matches for Russia, two with Evgeny Donskoy and one with Andrey Rublev. Russia lost all three of them, but it didn’t matter, with Rublev and Daniil Medvedev winning all their singles matches.