Tennis: Rublev wins Russian showdown with Medvedev at ATP Finals

TURIN – Andrey Rublev opened his ATP Finals campaign on Monday with a hard-fought 6-7 (7-9), 6-3, 7-6 (9-7) win over fellow Russian Daniil Medvedev in their opening group match.

The floppy-haired Rublev, who is making his third straight appearance at the season finale, had the best of the early exchanges and appeared to be on course to wrap up the first set in quick time as he opened up a 4-1 lead.

World No. 5 Medvedev had an inconsistent day on his serve, mixing 24 aces with eight double faults, but he battled back, saving two set points at 5-6, to take it to a tiebreak.

Rublev, two places lower in the rankings and the only player in the Green Group not to have previously won the Finals, rediscovered his rhythm in the second set as Medvedev again struggled on his serve, to take the match into a decider.

The third set again went to a tiebreak, this time without a single break on either side. Medvedev saved three match points at 3-6 in the breaker and then a fourth.

But he was powerless on the fifth match point as Rublev closed out the match, slumping onto his back after two and a half hours on court.

“Peace, peace, peace is all we need,” he wrote on the television camera on court at the end of the match, echoing his call for peace in Ukraine when he won in Dubai in February, just after the Russian invasion.

He added: “The final tiebreak, the rallies that we had there were crazy. The last rally, we had I don’t know, 30 shots. I was cramping a bit already, but I was thinking ‘One more, one more’.”

Earlier, Rafael Nadal suffered a disastrous start to his bid to win the ATP Finals for the first time after crashing to a 7-6 (7-3), 6-1 defeat by Taylor Fritz on Sunday.

The year-ender is the only major trophy missing from tennis icon Nadal’s list of honours but his straight-set loss means he will struggle to escape the round-robin stage.

“I need more matches to play at this kind of level, even if I am practising well, much better than how I am competing, without a doubt. That’s normal,” Nadal told reporters.

“At the end is not the ideal tournament and probably part of the season to come back after a couple of months without being on the tour because you don’t have time to get confidence.”

The 36-year-old realistically needs to win both his remaining matches against Green Group opponents Casper Ruud and Felix Auger-Alissime if he is to make the semi-finals.

Fritz, 25, is at the Finals for the first time in his career after replacing injured world No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz and gave Nadal a torrid time with some aggressive tennis.

“I did a good job, protecting my serve, holding my serve and I did very well in tiebreaker,” said Fritz on court.

“Once I got through that, I just wanted to do the same thing I was doing in the second set, protecting my serve and capitalise on break points when I got them.”

Meanwhile, in Glasgow, Switzerland won their first Billie Jean King Cup on Sunday after Belinda Bencic saw off Australia’s Ajla Tomljanovic in straight sets in the second match of the final to give them an unassailable 2-0 lead.

Jil Teichmann had earlier prevailed 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 over Storm Sanders in a thrilling contest to put the 2021 finalists ahead, before Olympic champion Bencic dismissed Tomljanovic 6-2, 6-1 to clinch the best-of-three contest.

The teams also clashed in the semi-finals of last year’s event in Prague, where Teichmann overcame Sanders and Bencic defeated Tomljanovic, before Switzerland went on to finish runners-up to Russia. “What happened last year gave us extra motivation,” Bencic said in an on-court interview. “We were so heartbroken, I don’t think I have ever cried so much. But in the locker room Jil came to me and said: ‘Next year, we’re going to do it, we’re going to take it.’ And we did, I’m so incredibly proud.” AFP, REUTERS