Third seed Andrey Rublev has claimed his sixth career ATP title and his fourth trophy of a highly successful 2020 season in St. Petersburg with a 7-6 (7-5) 6-4 win over Borna Coric in the final after 1 hour and 39 minutes.
Rublev has become the fifth Russian player to win the St. Petersburg title after Yevgeny Kafelnikov (1995), Marat Safin (2000, 2001), Mikhail Youzhny (2004) and Danil Medvedev (2019).
Rublev is currently ranked eighth in the ATP Race to London and is 249 points ahead of 2020 Rome Masters 1000 Diego Schwartzman, who holds the final qualifying spot.
Rublev has won four ATP Tour titles in Doha, Adelaide, Hamburg and St. Petersburg and is now level with Novak Djokovic. The 22-year-old Moscow native player has a 34-7 win-loss record in 2020 and is currently second on the ATP Tour list behind Djokovic, who won 37 of his 39 matches this year.
The first set featured just one break point and went on serve en route to the tie-break. Coric went up a 5-2 lead in the tie-break. Rublev reeled off five consecutive points to win the tie-break 7-5.
Rublev held serve in the first game of the second set with an ace. Coric got his first game on the scoreboard after a service winner to draw level to 1-1. Rublev hit a forehand down the line winner to hold his serve in the third game. The home player fired a forehand winner in the fifth game to take a 3-2 lead and earned a break point in the sixth game with a return winner. Coric fended it off with an ace. Both players served well in the next games to set up a tie-break.
Coric built up a 5-2 lead in the tie-break, but he made four forehand errors to trail 5-6. Rublev closed out the tie-break 7-5 with a service winner. Rublev went up a set and a break in the fifth game, as Coric netted a backhand, and held on his serve with a service winner.
Rublev hit an ace to open up a 5-3 lead forcing Coric to serve to stay in the match. Coric held serve at 30 in the ninth game when Rublev netted a forehand. Rublev held serve at 15 to clinch his first title as the top 10 player.
“Borna was playing really well. In the tie-break I was down 2-5 I was a bit lucky. Today is my day. Borna is one of the players who are famous for their fighting spirit. He beat a lot of players before. It is also important he is a good person”, said Rublev.
Coric was bidding to lift his first ATP Tour title since Halle 2018.
“When I go back home, I can train harder. Next year I will come back for sure and hopefully I can win the title”,said Coric.
