Switzerland's Roger Federer, world No. 3 and winner of 20 Grand Slam titles, was eliminated in the 8th finals of the Cincinnati Masters 1,000 tournament by Russia's Andrey Rublev, 70th, 6-3, 6-4, on Thursday.
Federer, 38, was playing his first tournament since his memorable final at Wimbledon against Serbian Novak Djokovic, and lost in the tie-break of the 5th set, after almost five hours of play 7-6 (7/5), 1- 6, 7-6 (7/4), 4-6, 13-12 (7/3).
In the quarter, Rublev will face his compatriot Medvedev
Federer, who has already been crowned in Ohio seven times, was picked cold by being 2-0 after losing his first faceoff. At 4-1, the 102-career Swiss champion was a bit seized and managed to score two more games before giving up the first set. Rublev, 21, winner of his only career tournament at Umag in 2017, took Federer's first serve in the seventh game to lead 4-3, then 5-3. If the Swiss managed to retain his last serve, the young Russian, finalist in Hamburg this year, gave him no chance to return and concluded his first match after only 62 minutes of exchanges.
In the next round, Rublev will face the current man, his compatriot Daniil Medvedev, 8th world player and finalist in Washington and Montreal in the last two weeks.
Richard Gasquet and Lucas Pouille in the quarters. Both Frenchmen have qualified for the quarterfinals of the Masters 1.000. Richard Gasquet, 56th in the world, defeated Argentinian Diego Schwartzman, 7-6 (8/6), 6-3, to take on Spain's Roberto Bautista. Lucas Pouille has eliminated Russian Karen Khachanov, and will play his place in the semifinal against another Spaniard, Pablo Carreno Busta.