Russian Andrey Rublev won a major tennis tournament in Hong Kong

The Bank of China Hong Kong Tennis Open, a tournament of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) category 250 with a prize fund of $661 thousand, ended with the victory of Russian Andrei Rublev. He overcame the resistance of several difficult opponents on the way to the final and managed to defeat the Finn Emil Ruusuvuori in the decisive match in two games , the world number five in the first week of the tennis season won his 15th career title.

Tournament in Hong Kong took place for the first time after a long, 22-year break. Previously, it was held in the fall and always attracted a good lineup of participants. The list of winners of this competition includes eight first rackets of the world from different years, including famous Americans Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi, plus five winners of Grand Slam tournaments. Most often, three times, another US representative, Michael Chang, won in Hong Kong in the mid-1990s.

Now the main characters were to become Russians Andrei Rublev (5th in the world) and Karen Khachanov (15th), as well as another representative of the top twenty – American Francis Tiafoe (16th).

Khachanov, however, stumbled at the very start, losing to the Finn Emil Ruusuvuori, who, taking 37th place in the ranking, dealt with another Russian, Pavel Kotov, in the quarterfinals, and quite unexpectedly ended up in the final.

But Rublev managed to confirm his status as the favorite. True, for this he needed to spend a lot of nerve cells. First, albeit in two games, but not without difficulty he broke the resistance of the British Liam Brodie, and then played two very difficult three-set matches against very young opponents – 19-year-old Frenchman Arthur Fis and the little-known Chinese Shang Juncheng, who at 18 years old stands 183rd in the world classification, but was able to get a wild card at the Australian Open.

Apparently, in Melbourne, with a successful combination of circumstances, Shang Juncheng, who is fast, sharp and has a good serve, can present a surprise. In any case, he looked very good against the background of Rublev. However, having lost the first game, the Russian established his signature game on the back line, achieved a strong-willed victory and advanced to Ruusuvuori, to whom he lost last summer at a tournament in Cincinnati.

The Finn’s mood was not bad again. He kept the ball in play quite well and in some plays posed difficult tasks for Rublev, however, in general, the Russian’s advantage in shootouts on the back line was clearly visible.

Having failed to capitalize on two break points in the first game, Rublev took someone else’s serve in the seventh game, during which his opponent made two double faults. The situation finally came under the Russian’s control after he fought off a break point in the tenth game and reserved the first game. The second set went faster. In five games, Rublev gave up only four points on his serve, and the decisive one was the penultimate, ninth game, which Ruusuvuori lost to nil. As a result – 6:4, 6:4 in 1 hour 17 minutes.

With an advantage in all statistical indicators except the average speed of the first and second serves, Rublev achieved a convincing victory on Orthodox Christmas Day and captured his 15th career title.

The result should boost his confidence ahead of the Australian Open starting next Sunday. As for the position in the top five of the APR ranking, which is closed by Rublev, there have been no fundamental changes there. The Russian is still separated from fourth-placed Italian Jannik Sinner by a considerable distance – about 1,500 points.

Meanwhile, it became known that the Australian Open will be held for the first time since 2013 without the participation of former world number one Rafael Nadal. Having made an attempt to resume performances after almost a year-long break caused by medical problems, the 37-year-old Spaniard suffered another hip injury during the quarterfinals, lost to Australian Jordan Thompson at a tournament in Brisbane, and was forced to withdraw from the Melbourne Major.

Evgeniy Fedyakov