Italian Open: Alejandro Tabilo beats higher seeded Karen Khachanov to book quarter finals spot

There have been a lot of surprising defeats in the ongoing Italian Open, but the match that takes the cake was between Alejandro Tabilo and Novak Djokovic. The Chilean surprised the world number 1 by beating him in two straight sets in the 3rd round beating the Serbian Giant in two straight sets. This was one of the biggest upsets of the tournament that we could never expect at all in the world of tennis.

This time the Chilean was up against another higher seeded player in Karen Khachanov where he was once again the underdog. Khachanov is currently among the top 20 ranked players in the world and is also one of the most experienced players in the game. Though Tabilo had one of the dream matches of his career against Djokovic, the odds were still against the South American going into the game.

Tabilo surprises again

Even though the odds were against the 26-year-old surprise package, his counter-attacking style of playing proved to be tough in this game as well. In both sets, Alejandro Tabilo was going neck to neck with Khachanov making sure he was still in the game at every moment. The first set itself went to a tiebreaker where Tabilo came out on top winning it with a score of 7-5. We all still thought that Khachanov would come back in the next set, but Tabilo was in the fight once again and this resulted in another tiebreaker where Tabilo edged past the Russian with a score of 12-10. 

This has officially fixed Tabilo's place in the quarter-finals which is really one of the high moments in his career. This was another great game of tennis to witness where the Chilean once again was in two straight sets getting past another higher-seeded player in two intense tiebreaker sets. This completely establishes him as one of the surprise playoff entries in the tournament and it will be interesting to see how far he will go.