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Eighth seed Yoshihito Nishioka of Japan beat Aslan Karatsev of Russia 6-4 6-4 in the semifinals of Zhuhai Championships on Monday, September 25. The match lasted close to two hours.
Nishioka will face top seed Karen Khachanov in the final on Tuesday. Khachanov is the slight favorite heading into the match, but Nishioka will pose a considerable threat. The conditions will slightly favor the Japanese in the final as he aims to win his first title of the year.
On that note, here's a look at two things that stood out in the match:
#1 Karatsev overpressed to hand Nishioka the advantage
Karatsev had the more powerful groundstrokes of the two players and tried to dominate proceedings with them. The Russian hit a few powerful down-the-line shots off either wing to win a few points early on.
However, he was also guilty of trying to put too much power behind his shots and hit the ball long quite a few times in the process. Nishioka, meanwhile, was more controlled in his shotmaking and made fewer errors than the Russian.
While Karatsev broke to take a 2-0 lead, the Japanese wrestled the break back immediately and managed to get another break of serve to win the opening set. Karatsev thus found himself in trouble despite being the more assertive of the two players.
#2 Nishioka used his crosscourt backhand well in the second set
Karatsev got his act together at the start of the second set and put pressure on the Japanese with his formidable groundstrokes. He broke Nishioka early once again to race into a 3-0 lead.
Midway through the set, however, Nishioka started playing his crosscourt backhand with a sharper angle and didn't allow the Russian to use his double-handed backhand. Instead, the Russian had to stretch towards his left to play slices off his backhand. This, in turn, allowed Nishioka to hit a number of winners.
Nishioka won five consecutive games to finish the match off in style. Karatsev performed very poorly on his second serve, winning only 35% of the points on it compared to 59% for Nishioka. The Japanese player's superior control and accuracy saw him through in the end.
