It was from the Nitto ATP Finals 2022 that Andrey Rublev he didn’t beat a top 3. The Russian perhaps chose the best moment to roar back, because the four defeats collected between Indian Wells and Barcelona had raised the alarm and created more than one doubt in his mind.
It was the Moscow native who prevented a Carlos Alcaraz to record the longest winning streak at the Masters 1000 in Madrid and reach the semi-finals. The phenomenon from Murcia stopped at 14 and will, for now, share the record with Rafael Nadal: the only tennis player capable of beating him in the Spanish capital before Rublev.
The 26-year-old raised his head at the end of a first set in which he played too passively and eliminated the two-time reigning champion with a score of 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.
ATP/WTA Madrid – Rublev roars back and eliminates Alcaraz.
Rybakina saves two match points
Rublev missed a not impossible return on the break point offered to him by Alcaraz in the second game and gave up the serve in the fifth by miscalibrating his forehand on the counterattack. This was enough for the Spaniard to archive the set.
The situation, however, immediately became complicated in the second set: Rublev converted the fifth chance to make it 0-2 and took advantage of a series of unusual errors by his opponent. Despite the two opportunities available at 2-4, Alcaraz did not reduce the gap, giving further confidence to Rublev.
The Russian continued to push and broke his rival at the start of the third set by breaking through with his backhand. Good at saving two more break points at 0-1, Rublev took flight by doubling the score at 4-1. Two tennis players representing Kazakhstan had never met in the quarter-finals of a WTA 1000 and the match staged in Madrid could not have had such an epilogue even if it had been written by the best screenwriter.
In fact, what happened on the Manolo Santana Stadium between Elena Rybakina And Yulia Putintseva. Ahead 5-2 in the decisive set, Putintseva wasted two consecutive match points in response and never won a game again.
Rybakina had the merit of never giving up and completed an extraordinary comeback with a score of 4-6, 7-6(4), 7-5 in two hours and 48 minutes of play. This is the sixth semi-final of the season for the current world number four.
Only one break made the difference in the first set: the one scored by Putintseva at 2-2. The 29-year-old served well and deservedly took the lead. The player born in 1995 canceled a set point at 5-6, but she was unable to make an impact in the tie-break that reopened all discussions.
In the third quarter, the unthinkable happened. In total control, Putintseva earned two match points in a row at 5-2 and Rybakina responded by hitting – in the first case – a phenomenal counter-block.
The winner of Wimbledon 2022 raised the level and collected five consecutive games.
