The Georgian tennis player Nikoloz Basilashvili lost to the No1 Serbian Novak Djokovic (6:4, 3:6, 4:6) in the quarterfinal of the Qatar Open 2018. The winner has earned a Qatar Open semi-final clash with 24th seeded Spain’s Roberto Bautista Agut.
The Georgian player is now ranked as a 21st seed with 1 795 points. After the match, the Serbian player praised Nikoloz Basilashvili.
“I thought Basilashvili was playing terrific from the beginning, I expected him to, I knew that he was playing the tennis of his life in the last 10 months.”
“He’s definitely one of the greatest hitters in the game and I wish him all the best for the rest of the season.”
The Qatar Open 2019 kicked off on the 31st of December in Doha, Qatar. On the first day of the tournament, Nikoloz Basilashvili won against the No 65 seed Spanish player Albert Ramos (6:1, 1:6, 6:1). As for the second match, Basilashvili beat No 68 seed Russian Andrey Rublev (6:3, 6:4). Nikoloz Basilashvili was born in Tbilisi, Georgia on the 23rd of February 23, 1992. He graduated from Granite Bay High School in California, USA. He has been playing tennis since he was 6 years old. In 2008, Nikoloz won his only junior title, the G4 Tennis Express tournament, defeating Raymond Sarmiento in three sets. In 2012-14, he won the Georgian Tennis championships. He is the first player from Georgia to gain an ATP World Tour title by winning the German Tennis Championships 2018. The 2018 ATP World Tour is the global elite men’s professional tennis circuit organized by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) for the 2018 tennis season. The Georgian player defeated the two-time winner of the German Title Leonardo Mayer of Argentina (6-4, 0-6, 7-5) to become the first Georgian to ever win the title.