Weekend Tennis Roundup

There's probably only one scenario that could have happened this weekend whereby Novak Djokovic, Dominic Thiem and Roger Federer would have all lost in Paris and I'd still be over the moon: Karen Khachanov winning!

The 6-6 Russian hunk added four Top 10 wins to his three career Top 10 wins on the way to capturing his first Masters 1000 title. He took out Djokovic, Thiem and John Isner (saving a match point) ...

and even made supposed Next Gen leader Alexander Zverev look like an asshole. 

 I guess the only disappointing news for the lost Hemsworth brother was finding out the 22-year-old was recently married ... to a woman ... with a vagina. 

Still, the view was good any way you looked at him ...

KAREN KHACHANOV stormed in to the final at the Masters 1000 Event in Paris today with a 64 61 victory over Dominic Thiem 👏🔥🎾

👉Khachanov will play the winner of Federer/Djokovic in the final tomorrow 👀#tennis #tenis

🎥 ( Fredsitbon ✅ ) pic.twitter.com/EN8D5mDfNC

— tennis news chan 1 (@tennisnewschan1) November 3, 2018

This camera operator knew what he/she was doing ...

 In other Paris news ...

Stefano Tsitsipas suffered a letdown after winning in Stockholm last week, falling to Damir Dzumhur in his opening match. (The Bosnian then had to retire against Djokovic in the next round.)  

But the young Greek didn't let an early exit get in the way of his fun, teaming up with Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan for some doubles action. They only won one match, but had a good time while it lasted ... as seen in this photo, where the return of actual shorts was on full display on the right.

Borna Coric's official season ended in a three-set thriller against Dominic Thiem. But his ride back to Zagreb to prepare for Davis Cup was peppered by a doppelganger sitting behind him, aka Nikola Mektic!

And hunky umpire Alex Robein called it a season as well, jumping in the French highlights reel!

On the women's side, Ashleigh Barty came out on top of the second-tier WTA Finals in Zhuhai, China, on Sunday, beat local gal Wang Qiang 6-3. 6-4. Barty, 22, beat defending champion and top seed Julia Goerges in the semifinals and picked up where she left off in that match to win the biggest title of her career. (Worth noting that the round-robin event featured Garbine Muguruza, Madison Keys, Elise Mertens, Caroline Garcia, Daria Kasatkin among others.) It was the Aussie's third WTA title after her triumphs on grass at the Nottingham Open earlier this year and at the 2017 Malaysian Open. "It's been a great finish in China this week," she said. "It's been a phenomenal year and I'm looking forward to a bit of holiday and then getting ready for the Australian summer."

Via Outsports: It was quite a weekend for Luksika Kumkhum of Thailand as she won the WTA Mumbai Open for her biggest title to date. In Sunday’s Mumbai Open final she beat Russia’s Irina Khromacheva, 1-6, 6-2, 6-3, and is now ranked 80th. Kumkhum, 25, made it to third round of this year’s Australian Open, her best showing in a Grand Slam event. Kumkhum is a rarity in being only of four openly gay players -- all women -- to play in a 2018 Grand Slam event. It’s even rarer to find an out LGBT athlete of any sex from Asia.

The men are off to Milan for their Next Gen ATP Finals. Here's praying they don't use that idiotic scoring system again. Even if they can't award points because it's an invitational event -- maybe there's an age discrimination case to be made, I'm not sure if they do or not -- surely real tennis fans would prefer to see real matches instead of exhibition-style crap.

Tsitsipas is the event's top seed ...