It won’t get the same attention as Rafael Nadal vs. Carlos Alcaraz, but Andrey Rublev vs. Taylor Fritz is a blockbuster battle in the BNP Paribas Open semifinals.
Along with Nadal and Alcaraz, Rublev is one of the three hottest players on tour right now. He is riding a 13-match winning streak and has captured back-to-back titles in Marseille and Dubai. Fritz owns a 13-5 lifetime record at the Indian Wells Masters, which is his favorite tournament–not far from his hometown of Rancho Santa Fe, California. This is his second consecutive trip to the semis.
The head-to-head series also forecasts a fun one, as they have split their four previous encounters at two wins apiece. Fritz prevailed 6-4, 7-6(4) at this same Indian Wells event in 2018 and he most recently got the job done 7-5, 7-6(2) at the Paris Masters last fall. In between those two results, Rublev won in five sets at the 2018 NextGen ATP Finals and 6-3, 6-1 last year in Dubai.
It has only been full steam ahead for Rublev since he triumphed in Dubai last month. The world No. 7 has not dropped a single set in the desert while taking out Dominik Koepfer, Frances Tiafoe, Hubert Hurkacz, and Grigor Dimitrov.
Fritz took a much more circuitous route to the final four. The world No. 20 double-breadsticked Kamil Majczhrzak but then played consecutive three-setters against Jaume Munar, Alex de Minaur, and Miomir Kecmanovic. Both Munar and de Minaur pushed Fritz to final-set tiebreakers.
Now the competition level heats up to an even greater extent in the form of a red-hot Rublev.
“He’s been hot lately,” Fritz assured. “He’s been on a long match win streak. I always feel like I play really good tennis when I play against him. I hit well off of his ball. It’s a lot of big hitting back and forth. I know I’m going to have to serve like I’ve been serving. I’m definitely going to have to step it up from the baseline.
“It’s crazy. I mean, especially me and Andrey have so much history playing each other in the juniors so much. We had several meetings in the juniors. He took me out on grass one time. I got him in the finals in Mexico one time. He got me in the finals of the junior masters. We’ve gone back and forth so much.
“It’s crazy just to think back…. It’s really cool to see how we’ve come up together and the kind of results we’re producing now.”
“He’s a great player,” Rublev said of Fritz. “Talented. [He has] an amazing serve; good, strong shots. Especially here on a hard surface, (with) the way he plays (it) fits him a lot.”
The setting should help Fritz make this match competitive–and perhaps even be the first player to steal a set off Rublev in the desert. But the No. 7 seed has been to a pair of Masters 1000 finals and the underdog has never advanced past this stage at this level. Look for Rublev’s winning streak to reach 14.
Pick: Rublev in 3
WWW?
Rublev in three
For sure Rublev, maybe in 2
Im about to watch but not so sure , Taylor knows how to play him and loves IW and the conditions
And there goes the last top ten player 😞 Although the top guys – except for Novaxx – were all in the draw, Rafa surprisingly didn’t have to face a single top ten player! But that doesn’t mean, his path into the final was a cake walk. Except for journey man Daniel Evans Rafa had to overcome a very talented B-assortment of the young guns. And the gap between them and the already well established A-assortment (Medvedev, Zverev, Tsitsipas, Rublev…) is actually quite small, and especially Alcaraz will be a top ten player very soon.
Taylor Fritz’s march into the final will delight the American audience, but I would have prefered Rublev. I like his game and his personality very much. Since I didn’t watch: why did Rublev lose? Was he simply outplayed by Fritz, or wasn’t he able to cope with the windy conditions?