Khachanov vs Atmane — a giant-killer against the steadier hand
Preview · Montreal (ATP Masters 1000) · Round of 64 · Wednesday 5 August 2026
Terence Atmane has made a habit this season of beating people he has no business beating and then losing to people he should not. On Tuesday he produced another of the good days, seeing off the wildcard Jack Draper 6-3, 2-6, 6-2. Draper, a former world number four, was playing his first tournament since Eastbourne in June and struggled visibly with his body in the closing stages, so the win needs its context, but Atmane still had to hold his nerve and did, saving all three break points he faced in the deciding set. His reward is Karen Khachanov, the twenty-first seed, rested after a first-round bye and, on paper at least, the more reliable operator. On the evidence of 2026, that reliability is relative.
The matchup
They have never met, which is mildly surprising given how much hard-court tennis both have played this year. Khachanov is 30 and ranked 39, with seven career titles and a career record of 329 wins and 241 losses. Atmane is 24, ranked 46, left-handed, and has yet to win a title, his career mark standing at 23 wins and 38 losses. The Frenchman is the bigger hitter off the forehand and the more chaotic competitor; Khachanov is the better returner and by some distance the more experienced man in a tight third set at this level. At six feet six against six feet four, neither will be short of free points.
Form & hard courts
Their seasons are almost eerily aligned. Khachanov is 16-16 for the year and 7-8 on hard courts; Atmane was 12-18 and also 7-8 on the surface before Tuesday. The difference lies in the peaks. Khachanov's best week was the Rome quarter-finals, where he beat Aleksandr Shevchenko, Botic van de Zandschulp and Dino Prizmic before losing to Casper Ruud, and he pushed Carlos Alcaraz to 7-6, 4-6, 3-6 in the Doha quarter-finals. He also came through a five-setter against Alex Michelsen at the Australian Open. Atmane's peaks are more spectacular and more scattered. He reached the Acapulco quarter-finals by beating Rafael Jodar and Grigor Dimitrov, made the last sixteen in Miami with wins over Daniel Altmaier, Arthur Rinderknech and Felix Auger-Aliassime, and beat Frances Tiafoe in Washington last week. He also lost his opening match at each of this year's Grand Slams.
The deciding factor
Whether Atmane can string two good days together. His scalp collection is genuinely impressive and every one of the biggest names on it fell on a hard court, but he has almost never followed a marquee win with another. Khachanov's virtue is the opposite: he rarely produces the extraordinary, but he rarely disappears either, and he holds serve often enough to make his opponent play a near-perfect return game. The bye is worth something too, given Atmane needed three sets on Tuesday.
The call
Khachanov to edge it, quite possibly in three sets, with low confidence. There is nothing in the head-to-head, nothing in the surface records and little in the rankings to separate them, so this comes down to trusting the more consistent floor over the higher ceiling.
