Andrey Rublev beat Lorenzo Sonego 6-4 6-4 after 1 hour and 19 minutes in the final of the Erste Bank Open in Vienna claiming his ATP Tour-leading fifth title of the year without dropping a set this week after winning four tournaments in Doha, Adelaide, Hamburg and St. Petersburg. Rublev is now tied with world number 1 Novak Djokovic at the top of the 2020 wins leaderboard with 39 matches. With this title Rublev has qualified for the Nitto ATP Finals in London for the first time in his career.
Rublev claimed his first break in the fifth game to take a 3-2 lead, as the Italian lucky loser made two forehand errors. Sonego had only been broken twice at this tournament.
Rublev never looked back and saved two break points when he was serving for the opening set.
Rublev broke serve in the ninth game to take a 5-4 lead, as Sonego made a backhand error in the ninth game.
Rublev has won 19 of his past 20 matches and extended a 15-match winning streak at ATP 500 tournaments. This was his second title this year without dropping a set. He was not broken in 38 service games. The last player to win a title without losing a set was Alex De Minaur in Atlanta in 2019.
Rublev has become the first Russian player to win five titles in one year in one ATP Tour season since Nikolay Davydenko in 2009.
“This tournament is really special for me because my grandmother was also Austrian, so I have Austrian blood. It’s a special title for me. I congratulate with Lorenzo. We played for the first time in 2016 and he has made a big step forward since then. I thank the Vienna organizers for staging this tournament in this difficult period and my coach Fernando Vicente and the rest of my team”, said Rublev.
Sonego lost against Aljaz Bedene in the last qualifying match, but entered the main draw as lucky loser as a replacement for Diego Schwartzman. The 25-year-old player from Turin clinched the biggest win of his career in the quarter final against Novak Djokovic becoming the sixth Italian player to beat the world number 1 player following in the footsteps of Corrado Barazzutti, Adriano Panatta, Gianluca Pozzi, Filippo Volandri and Fabio Fognini. Sonego backed up his win over Djokovic with a semifinal victory over Daniel Evans.
Sonego, who played football for his local Turin team, started playing tennis at the age of 11 with Gipo Arbino, who remains his coach today. His father Giorgio was his main influence to start a tennis career. His idols growing up were Roger Federer and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
Lorenzo made his debut in the ATP Tour in 2013. He reached the quarter final in Budapest and took part in his first three Grand Slam tournaments at the Australian Open, Wimbledon and the US Open. In 2019 he won his maiden ATP title in Antalya and reached the quarter final in Monte-Carlo. This year he got through to the fourth round at the French Open and his first ATP 500 final in Vienna. With the final in Vienna Sonego has improved his career-high to world number 32.
“This was one of the best tournaments of this year. It was an amazing final for me. I like Vienna and thank you for the support”, said Sonego.
