“Shocked and happy”: Rublev reached the quarterfinals of the Australian Open, losing 0:5 in a tie-break in the fifth game

Rublev coped with nerves

The match between Andrey Rublev and Holger Rune for reaching the quarterfinals of the Australian Open lived up to the expectations of the audience and became one of the highlights of the tournament.

Tennis players staged a five-set thriller with a super tie-break, in which the Russian demonstrated an incredible will to win.

Several times during the confrontation, he was on the verge of defeat, but invariably found in himself both physical and strength to continue the struggle.

This meeting was the first in the major, in which two tennis players from the top 10 world rankings met at once.

But if Andrei has been showing high-level tennis for several years, then 19-year-old Rune made an incredible breakthrough at the end of last year.

And the most memorable was Holger's performance at the Masters in Paris, where he not only defeated Novak Djokovic in the final, but also knocked out Hubert Hurkach, Carlos Alcaraz, Felix Auger-Aliassime and all the same Rublev from the fight.

More rivals on the court did not intersect, so Andrei had the opportunity to take revenge for that failure in France.

Recently, the first racket of the country did not shelve the matter and won the first set - 6:3.

However, despite the score, the game was not so easy.

Rublev put pressure on the Dane, but he kept up the good work.

The key was the eighth game, which Rune ended with a double fault and allowed the opponent to make a second break in a row (before that, the Russian and the Dane exchanged games on other people's serves).

The second game continued in the same vein: with long rallies and a fight for every point.

Holger slowly began to improve, which the Russian himself contributed to, spoiling the statistics of hitting the first ball.

As a result, the Dane managed to make a break in the fourth game, and then earn two set points at the reception.

However, Rublev issued three aces in a row and corrected the situation.

However, not for long.

Set still remained with Rune.

In the third installment, the nature of the game changed: the heat and fatigue of the tennis players affected.

Draws have become shorter, and the number of errors has increased.

With the score 3:2, Rune completely lost his concentration, giving 11 points in a row.

When the Dane woke up, it was already too late to correct the situation: Rublev took his pitch to zero - 6:3.

It seemed that Andrei's victory was a matter of time.

Moreover, at the very beginning of the fourth installment, Holger asked for a medical timeout.

However, excitement and fatigue did not bypass the Russian.

His first serve sank heavily: from 74% at the beginning of the match to 44%.

This allowed Rune to increasingly impose a fight at the reception.

Even despite the abundance of his own unforced errors (16 only for this set and 60 for the match), the Dane was able to bring the matter to the decisive set.

And more importantly, to get a psychological advantage.

Rublev, in his traditional manner, began to panic and, as a result, in the first two games of the decisive set he made four unforced errors and one double.

As a result, Rune led 4:1, which was a good bid for victory, given the opponent's unstable game.

With the score 5:3, the Dane went to serve for the match, but then Andrey suddenly turned on and took the game to zero.

While Holger was recovering from such a knockout, the score became equal.

But we must pay tribute to the Dane, he also did not plan to give up easily and in the 12th game he earned two match points at once on Rublev's serve.

And here Andrey again showed incredible composure, switching the game to a tie-break with two aces.

If the latter had been played according to the standard rules - up to seven points, and not up to ten, like the championship, then the Russian would hardly have been able to put the audience in Melbourne Park on the ears.

And so, he immediately gave two of his submissions, allowed Rune to lead first 5:0, and then 7:3, and, as he later admitted, he actually resigned himself to defeat.

True, with one “but”, along the way, he began to persuade himself to win as many points as possible. 

As a result, Andrey managed to do the impossible - take six draws in a row and earn two match points.

Rune showed that he was not a badass either, playing both.

Moreover, he eliminated the second one close to a brilliant shot along the line at the moment when Rublev went to the net and struck a rally.

But in the third case, after a couple of minutes, the grid helped the Russian.

The ball, after receiving Andrei, caught on the cable and rolled over to the side of Holger.

The Dane had no chance to save the situation.

Andrei collapsed onto the court, not believing in his own success.

“I have never been able to win such matches in my life.

This is my first victory in such a game, and I ended up in the quarterfinals at such an important tournament as the Australian Open.

I will remember this moment for the rest of my life.

I have no words, I am shocked and happy, ”he said immediately after the match.

Rublev admitted that he constantly replayed last year's Roland Garros quarterfinals with Marin Cilic in his head when he gave a tie-break to an opponent due to psychological problems, and tried not to repeat those mistakes.

In the end, he succeeded: Andrey made it to the top eight at the Australian Open for the second time in his career and joined Karen Khachanov.

“Before the end of the fifth set, everything was psychologically terrible.

I had no control over my emotions or what was happening around me.

Constantly swearing at himself and within himself.

When he broke and the score was 5-2 in the fifth set, then he managed to recover.

I thought that everything was over, without a chance, now I’ll go to the hotel to collect things, fly away tomorrow.

Let go.

And emotions have become more positive, come on, just try, it wasn’t, it suddenly works out, ”said the athlete.

However, it will be very difficult for Rublev to take another step towards the title, because Novak Djokovic will be his next opponent.

Serbian tennis player in the fourth round did not experience any problems.

He allowed the owner of the courts, Alex de Minor, to record only nine actively won balls in his asset and take only five games - 6:2, 6:1, 6:2.

Whether Andrey will be able to pick up the keys to the 21-time Grand Slam winner is a big question.

The rivals have met three times in the last two years.

The Russian won only once at the Belgrade competition in 2022.

But here you need to make allowances for the fact that Djokovic was then not in the best shape after a long pause in performances: he was not allowed to some tournaments because of his unwillingness to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.

The other two meetings took place in the group stages of the ATP Finals.

And both times the Russian was able to take only five games.

Another quarter-final pair was made up of the Americans Tommy Paul and Ben Shelton, which can be called a sensation.

And if the first one has the ATP title won in Stockholm in 2021, then the second one has not yet won a single tournament and occupies 85th place in the world ranking - the lowest in the top eight at the current Australian Open.

Sobolenko adjusted the pitch

In the women's part of the tournament, all the quarter-finalists were also determined.

And here it is worth rejoicing for the representatives of Belarus: after Victoria Azarenka, Arina Sobolenko continues to fight.

For the first time in her career, the tennis player reached this stage of the major and became the fourth representative of the countries of the former CIS in the top eight.

Earlier, Elena Ostapenko and Elena Rybakina also won their matches.

Sobolenko's opponent in the fourth round was Belinda Bencic.

Both athletes approached the face-to-face confrontation with the same statistics: seven victories in a row and the title in Adelaide, with the only difference that the Belarusian won the trophy at the first tournament in Australia, and the Swiss won the second.

The real struggle among the girls unfolded only in the first set.

Initially, Bencic owned the initiative.

She made a break in the third game, but Sobolenko waited for her chance and leveled the game, and then in the end she clung to her opponent's serve and converted the first set point.

In the second game, Arina's advantage only grew thanks to a stable first serve, and she confidently won, making two breaks - 7:5, 6:2.

It is interesting that quite recently it was “their” games that created the greatest number of problems for Arina.

As the tennis player admitted, recently she has radically changed the technique of serving the ball.

“We already thought that everything was wrong.

As a result, we started working with a biomechanics specialist who helped other guys.

I learned a lot of new things for myself: even when I had a super serve, it was not super, but at the limit.

I remember, indeed, that at important moments my serve failed due to the fact that it was impossible to serve under pressure with such a technique.

This is the only thing that helped: they changed the biomechanics, began to understand more how it works, ”Sobolenko admitted.

Also on Monday, January 23, the Croatian Donna Vekic, the Polish Magda Linett and the Czech Karolina Pliskova made it to the quarterfinals of the Australian Open.