In the midst of this present that devours tennis players and multiplies injuries, Andrey Rublev reaches the summit at the Caja Mágica in Madrid. The Russian, always a torrent of emotions, uncontrollable most of the time, imposes the logic of the moment —ranking, game and dynamics of recent times—and raises his second Masters 1000 after beating Felix Auger-Aliassime in the outcome this Sunday (4-6, 7-5 and 7-5, in 2h 49m). In the end, the fortune that accompanied the previous days of the Canadian, 23 years old and 35th in the world, ends up turning against him because the pace gets the better of him; benefited by the injuries of his rivals – up to three, Mansik, Sinner and Medvedev -, the course of the match traps the muscles of his legs and ends up leaning into an episode without excessive attractiveness, rather insipid, in line with the final stretch of a tournament that was losing incentives and torpedoed by injuries.
Rublev, 26 years old and sixth in the ATP now, celebrates and reveals that a viral process that he has been carrying since last week has been on the verge of giving up on him. He hasn’t gotten it. There are 16 awards already in his file: “Doctors are magicians. He was almost dead every day, I have barely slept for the last three or four nights.” The fact is that he has resisted Bagnis, Davidovich, Griekspoor, Fritz and Auger-Aliassime, in addition to having been able to beat Carlos Alcaraz in the quarterfinals. Meritorious trophy, then. And maybe it’s destiny. Twenty years ago, when he was a child, his compatriot Marat Safin – former number one and champion of two majors – won the Madrid title in the Casa de Campo, on hard court, indoors. The deck does not change this time the fate of his opponent, more damaging in indoor.
And the Canadian comes in sharp, achieving a break that softens the terrain in the first set and that Rublev digests as best he can, in an unknown version of the Russian; not because of his proposal, but because of his lack of expressiveness, because of that absence of fire, because of staying upright in the face of adversity. Under other circumstances, it would have been enough to light the fuse. Not this time. Is that Andrey? He is in it, he assures; correcting oneself; Too many cable crossings. Always incandescent, with a tendency to lose his temper easily, on this occasion he manages to contain himself for a long time while his rival punishes him again and again with the serve, bam-bump-bump!, projectile after projectile; power and sophistication in that deck that he manages to combine two concepts as disparate as violence and delicacy.
It seems then that the duel can go that way, the afternoon suggests, and the approach does not deceive: a clean shot, a little virtuosity. But there is an addition. Beyond the bullets, it is worth not forgetting that both are mentally fragile players, and that at any moment they can lose the thread and suffer a skid because their record reflects a good handful of precedents. It is known that they are not comfortable in the territory of vertigo, that which makes the final sifting: the good, the very good and the best. Rublev fights regularly—but without much luck—to move up the ladder, while Auger-Aliassime hopes to regain the spark and spirit to return to the noble floor. They both have a lot of work to do.
Although he managed to seal the first set, not without a slight hesitation, the ghosts came to the American in the final stretch of the second, when he had to demonstrate. He doesn’t do it, the Russian bites him and the match ends in a slippery scenario that threatens to greatly penalize the first mistake. There isn’t, not at the moment; The two hold on, but their physique begins to suffer from the treacherous inactivity of these days – triple portion of massage on the thighs – and when push comes to shove, the Russian’s greater consistency (who would have thought) ends up passing sentence. Auger-Aliassime’s expression begins to twist, aware that his options are diminishing because the problems increase when serving, and he ends up undoing where he had started to dream: the double fault closes the result and Madrid is enthroned for the first time to Rublev, the volcano that has known how to contain itself.
You can follow EL PAÍS Deportes in Facebook and xor sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.
#Rublev #picks #Safins #baton #Madrid
