World No. 7 Andrey Rublev continued his love affair with the Lindner Family Tennis Centre Thursday when he claimed a dramatic 7-6(2), 7-6(5) win over Gael Monfils to charge into the quarter-finals of the Western & Southern Open.
"It was super tough. It was really humid," Rublev said. "Gael was running super fast and it's impossible to play short rallies with him. If you try to shoot every ball you will miss most of them and the match will be over in half an hour. So you need to take your time, stay in the rally and wait for the right moment.”
Rublev was No. 70 in the FedEx ATP Rankings when he last played in Cincinnati and came through qualifying to topple Stan Wawrinka and Roger Federer to reach the semi-finals. Last year, he fell in the first round when the tournament was played in New York due to the pandemic. Returning to Ohio this year as one of the world’s leading players and positioned fifth in the FedEx ATP Race To Turin, Rublev is looking to ride his good vibes at the traditional venue to claim his first Masters 1000 title.
Rublev won all 23 first-serve points in the first set as neither player earned a break point. But it was a different story in the second set, which began with four straight breaks and featured six breaks overall heading into the tie-break.
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The second set also had additional drama. Troubled by his left knee, Monfils sat down at 0-1 and then was visited by ATP physio Paul Ness at 1-all. He also threw up into a courtside garbage can. After a six-minute delay, Monfils and Rublev exchanged words but the encounter ended with a friendly handshake before play resumed.
Monfils played ultra-aggressively in the second, working into position to serve for the set at 5-3 and to hold a set point on Rublev’s serve at 5-4. But at 5/5 in the tie-break Rublev nailed a down-the-line backhand winner after an athletic point to set up match point, which he cashed in when Monfils double faulted.
Rublev advances to play Frenchman Benoit Paire, who broke John Isner three times in the final set en route to a 7-6(1), 6-7(2), 6-1 victory that takes him to his first Masters 1000 quarter-final since his semi-final run in Rome in 2013.
from Tennis - ATP World Tour https://ift.tt/37VIEOj
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