Andrey Rublev beats Alex de Minaur to reach the semi-finals of the Rolex Paris Masters

In the final quarterfinals of the Rolex Paris Masters, an Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Masters 1000 tournament with a prize fund of €5.8 million, Andrey Rublev beat Australian Alex de Minaur in three sets. After this, the last two participants in the Nitto ATP Finals, which begins in Turin on November 12, have been determined. They were Alexander Zverev from Germany and Dane Holger Rune, who rounded out the top eight tennis players in the world, despite losing to Novak Djokovic in another match of the final in Paris.

The quarterfinal stage of the last ATP Masters 1000 tournament this season, which takes place in the Parisian Accor Arena and is approaching its climax, turned out to be decisive in terms of determining the last two holders of tickets to the final competition Nitto ATP Finals. Before the start of Friday’s meetings, five people still applied for them. In addition to Alexander Zverev from Germany and the Dane Holger Rune, this list included the Pole Hubert Hurkacz, the Australian Alex de Minaur and the Russian Karen Khachanov. However, in order to continue the dispute for getting into Turin, each of them needed to win their quarterfinals.

The first to fail in this task was Hurkacz, who lost to the Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, who was in excellent shape, in three sets – 1:6, 6:4, 4:6. Then Khachanov could not cope with the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas, who won in 80 minutes: 6:3, 6:4, and at the end of the day Alex de Minaur, who met with Andrei Rublev, also failed. The Australian is not the most comfortable opponent for the Russian, who suffered two defeats in their four previous meetings. (One of them took place at the February tournament in Rotterdam, also held indoors). The outcome of the first set was decided by a single break made by the Australian in the ninth game, but the other two sets were already favored by Rublev, who converted a total of 5 of 15 break points and finished the match with a score of 4:6, 6:3, 6:1.

Thus, the results of the last two ATP tournaments of the regular season, which will be held next week in Metz and Sofia, will no longer affect the list of participants in the Nitto ATP Finals. This list includes Serbian Novak Djokovic, Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz, Russians Daniil Medvedev and Andrey Rublev, Italian Jannik Sinner, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Alexander Zverev and Holger Rune.

As for the semi-finals of the Rolex Paris Masters, Dimitrov will meet Tsitsipas, and then Djokovic and Rublev will take to the court. Theoretically, the chances of the first racket seem to be higher.

In a series of personal meetings, he leads – 4:1 (the last time they met at Wimbledon, where Rublev took only the first set), and he will have several hours more to rest, because the Russian’s match with Alex de Minaur ended around one in the morning . True, the Serbian veteran is holding his first tournament after his triumph at the US Open almost two months ago and has not yet reached his best form. In the third round match with Dutchman Tallon Griekspoor, which ended with a score of 4:6, 7:6 (7:2), 6:4, Djokovic was on the verge of failure, and the quarterfinals against Holger Rune, which he won (7:5 , 6:7 (3:7), 6:4) and took revenge for last year’s defeat in the final, it turned out to be extremely tense. In total, these two meetings lasted about five and a half hours, so Rublev has the opportunity to take advantage of the imperfect state of his famous opponent.

Evgeniy Fedyakov