ATP Paris Masters 2018 final, Karen Khachanov vs Novak Djokovic: 3 things learned

#2 Khachanov’s ploy of opening up the court worked:

Khachanov hit some powerful forehands

In most of his service games, Khachanov’s 2nd and 3rd shots were crosscourt forehands which sent Djokovic to a far corner of the court and opened it up on the other side. Djokovic then struggled to get back to the other side of the court and Khachanov played some exceptional down-the-line backhand shots to compound Djokovic’s misery.

To his credit, Khachanov did not try to play too many fancy shots and kept things simple. Djokovic came to the net occasionally to shake things up but could not handle Khachanov’s passing shots. The Russian played some very good backhand passing shots in the match. However, he would have to work on his footwork and movement as it took him longer than usual to come to the net whenever he had to do it. Djokovic could not exploit this weakness of Khachanov as he does not possess a very good slice shot.