Khachanov Finding His Groove in Canada Again National Bank Open

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With his big serve and flat groundstrokes, Karen Khachanov has always felt right at home on the fast hard courts in Canada. Since making his first appearance at the National Bank Open presented by Rogers in 2017, Khachanov has gone on to reach the semifinals twice — once in Toronto, once in Montreal — as well as the final four of both the Australian and U.S. Opens.

On a picturesque Saturday afternoon at Sobeys Stadium, No. 11 seed Khachanov improved to 14-6 at the National Bank Open — his second-best record at an ATP Masters 1000 event after Paris, where he has recorded 16 wins — with an impressive 6-4, 7-5 victory over No. 8 seed and three-time Grand Slam finalist Casper Ruud.

Despite never having beaten Ruud in two prior meetings, Khachanov entered this fourth-round clash riding a wave of confidence. After a slow start to the season, the 29-year-old found his form on the clay and the grass, reaching the last eight or better in Barcelona, Geneva, ’s-Hertogenbosch, Halle and Wimbledon. Ruud, by contrast, had lost early at Roland Garros — the major where he previously reached two of his major finals — and then missed the entire grass-court season.

Khachanov was dialed in from the start. After missing out on a couple break point chances in the opening game, he made no such mistake in the fifth, immediately imposing his aggressive game style on an increasingly erratic Ruud. In his own service games, Khachanov successfully fended off two break points en route to taking the opener.

“The game plan that I had [was] to focus on my serve, try to take advantage from that, and then definitely in the rallies to be solid but at the same time to take initiative,” Khachanov said. Ruud “likes to have rhythm and to have time, which I also do. But … I need to beat him with, let's say, being solid but at the same time taking advantage when I can to push him off the court.”

The second set proved to be a similar story, with Khachanov breaking in the fifth game by putting a suffocating amount of pressure on Ruud from the back of the court. But just when it appeared that he was beginning to coast to victory, Khachanov played a loose eighth game to surrender the break.

In the end, however, Khachanov was able to keep his cool, earning a decisive break in the eleventh game and not dropping a single point in his last two service games. All in all, Khachanov won 29 of 30 (97%) points behind his first serve — a part of every player’s game that rarely fires on all cylinders.

“To be honest, it's a question overall in the whole season: What is the [first-serve] percentage? So you try to get as it high as possible, but it's not happening all the time,” he said. The success behind first-serve percentages is “a little bit a combination of both maybe serving and how opponents return. If he reads your serve good enough, what happens after he returns, maybe sometimes you make some mistakes. So today, apparently, everything was going really well.”

Although the conditions in Toronto and Montreal have long suited his game, Khachanov admitted after the match that the combination of the courts and the livelier balls have been a difficult change of pace after Wimbledon.

“Every time you come [to] a different tournament, it's different balls, different conditions, different surfaces. So you need really time to adjust and to survive maybe one or two matches and then you start to feel maybe used to [the conditions], you feel a little bit better,” he said. “[It's] the same [as] the opponents on the other side. So I would say sometimes conditions suit some guys better, some not.

“But to be honest, even the first days that I arrived, I didn't like the conditions a lot,” he continued. “I would say it's tougher to control the ball. It's flying a lot, but then you need to adjust. At the end of the day, a lot of tournaments, it's all about adjusting. Who adjusts better wins. So sometimes you don't play necessarily your perfect game, but you play good enough or excellent and it's enough to win.”

For a spot in his third semifinal at the National Bank Open, Khachanov will have to square off against American Alex Michelsen, who beat him in straight sets earlier this year at the Australian Open. 20-year-old California native is in the midst of a breakout week in Toronto, having knocked out No. 3 seed Lorenzo Musetti in a three-set thriller and then getting the better of good friend and fellow rising star Learner Tien earlier in the day on Centre Court.

“He's a good guy. He's a fun guy,” Khachanov said of Michelsen. “We played doubles together in Halle a couple of weeks ago. We got to know each other a little bit closer. I think he's a promising young American player. He's having a good weapons, good serve, good strokes. He's coming forward. He likes to shorten the points, but at the same time he has good defence. I was a little bit surprised because I felt like his offense was quite good in Australia, but his defence skills were good as well. So I would say overall he's a kind of player who tries to play consistent but also takes a lead and takes advantage to play fast tennis like [most] Americans.”

The ATP's best return to Toronto this summer for the National Bank Open presented by Rogers July 26 to Aug. 7, 2025 at Sobeys Stadium. 2025 Tickets are on sale. Get your tickets today!

Feature Photo : Peter Power