Andrey Rublev removed the champion – Newspaper Kommersant No. 66 (7511) of 04/15/2023

One of the semi-finalists of the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters – the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Masters 1000 tournament with a prize fund of € 5.8 million, which is nearing completion in Monaco, was Russian Andrey Rublev. Having beaten the German Jan-Lennard Struff in two sets, he will meet with the American Taylor Fritz, who unexpectedly easily outplayed the winner of this competition of the last two years, the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas.

For Andrey Rublev, who won 9 of his 12 titles on hard, clay cannot be considered crown. Nevertheless, the Russian champion of the junior Roland Garros 2014 knows how to play well on clay and gains a significant number of rating points on it every season. Let’s say that now 980 out of 3470 points (or 28%) available on Rublev’s account are earned in clay tournaments. Therefore, the current segment of the APR calendar is perfect to try to make up for several early defeats that the Russian has suffered over the past four months.

The courts of the Monte Carlo Country Club stadium, which hosts the first Masters 1000 clay tournament of the season, have already brought good luck to Rublev. Two years ago, he reached the decisive stage there, beating Spaniard Rafael Nadal, the king of clay, for the first time.

True, the Russian started the current tournament with a creak. To pass in the opening match of his peer, 25-year-old Spaniard Jaume Munyar, who occupies the 83rd place in the rating, Rublev needed all three games.

This was followed by a more confident victory over Karen Khachanov, who is still having an excellent season, and in the semifinals, the Russian’s opponent unexpectedly turned out to be the German Jan-Lennard Struff, who defeated the French Open finalist Norwegian Kasper Ruud the day before.

30-year-old Struff is an unpredictable tennis player. On a good day for himself, he can cause trouble to almost any opponent. This was confirmed by the draw score of a series of his previous personal meetings with Rublev – 3: 3, and the sensational victory over the Russian in the first round of last year’s Roland Garros. Struff has a good serve, and when he manages to play risky, sometimes even adventurous tennis with a lot of sharp shots, it is very difficult to stop him. But Rublev in this case was noticeably better. In the first set, he gave up only one, starting game, and in the second set he looked quite solid in the tie-break and eventually won in 100 minutes.

It seemed that in the semi-finals Rublev would have to play with Stefanos Tsitsipas, the champion of the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters of the last two years, but the Greek unexpectedly lost to the American Taylor Fritz, who had previously lost all five matches on clay against representatives of the top ten.

Fritz’s uncomplicated but very effective technique allows him to quickly pass the ball around the court, and when he catches the right rhythm, not everyone can cope with his speed.

Rublev cannot be called the unequivocal favorite of this semi-final, however, he can already be pleased with his result. Having earned at least 360 points in Monte Carlo, the Russian is currently in tenth place in terms of points scored this season.

The leader in this indicator is Daniil Medvedev, who also recorded the current tournament as an asset. On Thursday late in the evening, in a hard fight for more than three hours, he beat Alexander Zverev from Germany, who served twice in the third set for the match, and then missed two match points in the tie-break. True, the Russian failed to recover by the Friday meeting with the ninth racket of the world Holger Rune, and the young Dane won relatively easily. Almost immediately it became known that Medvedev withdrew from the 500 category tournament, which will be held next week in Barcelona. Given the load received in Monte Carlo, this is a logical decision. It may allow the Russian tennis player to better prepare for more important competitions in Madrid and Rome. In addition, Novak Djokovic, who scored 690 points less than Medvedev this year, dropped out in Monte Carlo even earlier, losing to Italian Lorenzo Musetti in the 1/8 finals.

Evgeny Fedyakov