Andrey Rublev avenged his 2020 Nitto ATP Finals defeat to Stefanos Tsitsipas with a 6-4 6-4 win in the first day of this year’s edition of the end-of-season tournament at the Pala Alpitour in Turin.
Rublev had held a match point against Tsitsipas last year in the O2 Arena in London. On Monday evening the Russian player won 90% of his first serve points and broke once in each set. Rublev has drawn level to 4-4 in his eight head-to-head matches against Tsitispas.
“I think it was the first time ever. I don’t know what to say because it was the first time ever and I am happy with everything I did today on court. From serve, return, rallies from the baseline to my mental side, how I controlled my emotions today. We will see if I can keep going this way”, said Rublev.
Rublev recorded the second victory of his career at the Nitto ATP Finals after beating Dominic Thiem in London last year.
Rublev will face world number 1 Novak Djokovic, who beat Casper Ruud 7-6 (7-4) 6-2. The match between Djokovic and Rublev will determine which player leads the standings in the Green Group.
“It’s already set I am going to play against Novak and there is not much to say. He is one of the greatest players in history, so I don’t know even to say. I am going to win a couple of games, but the reality is the only thing I can do is to believe in myself and do my best”, said Rublev.
Rublev revealed that he had fallen asleep before the game. When he woke up, he thought it was another day.
“Normally I don’t sleep at all during the day or even if I sleep I never asleep, but today I fell asleep fo more than one hour. I set an alarm for 6 pm and when I woke up, it was already so dark, and I felt completely broken, like if someone wake you up at 7 am. I was thinking, ‘I am not going to wake up now, I am gong to sleep for another half an hour’. Because normally in the morning I set many alarms, like this I can sleep longer, at least mentally I think this. I felt strange, firstly I always put my phones on to charge and now they were not charging. Normally at night I look at the time, 6 pm. What is this ? How is possible ? Did my phone get maybe a bit broken or somethng ? I started to realise: ‘I fell asleep during the day. I have a match in a couple of hours, so I need to wake up”.
Roblev agrees with Danil Medvedev that the surface is super fast.
“The surface is super fast. I would say the same, like Danil. This is the fastest surface on tour. There is not one tournament with the same speed of this surface. In my opinion, It should be much slower, because it should be much slower. There were not really many rallies.
