Rafael Nadal follows the footsteps of Novak Djokovic and is out of the Monte Carlo Masters. 6th seed Andrey Rublev defeated the ‘King of Clay’ in a 3-set thriller. The confident Russian won the match in 2 hours 32 minutes with a scoreline of 6-2,4-6,6-2.
Rublev was quick off the blocks and broke Nadal’s serve in the very first game. He was surprisingly calm throughout and absolutely dominated the first set and held serve to win the first set 6-2.
He carried the same intensity into the second set and broke Nadal’s serve again upfront. Nadal played no where near his best and looked completely off color. He wasn’t able to serve well and hit a load of double faults. To add to Nadal’s misery, his back-hand didn’t help him either. He hit more than 10 unforced errors from the backhand in the first hour itself. He also hit a shocking 7 double faults in the first two sets.
But eventually, Nadal stepped up his game late in the 2nd set with a moment of magic to break Rublev’s serve for the first time in the match. He then held serve to win the second set 6-4.
Rublev keeps his calm to win the third set comfortably
It was looking like Nadal has finally found his rhythm after winning the second set but that was not the case. Rublev again broke Nadal’s serve in the very first game and carried forward that momentum.
He hit winners left, right and center in the later half of the set and gained a double break advantage. And he didn’t look back from there, capitalizing on the lead and winning the match.
He had defeated Federer at Cincinatti previously but one can argue that this win could be the biggest win of the Russian’s career. He will face Casper Ruud in the semi-final on Saturday.
Also read: ‘You would think that players hang out together, but it doesn’t really happen’: Stefanos Tsitsipas
