A second 1000-point title will be on the line for both Andrey Rublev and Hubert Hurkacz when they clash in the Rolex Shanghai Masters final on Sunday.
Heading into one of the most important matches in their careers for both players, the head-to-head series stands at 2-2. Hurkacz won two in a row at the 2020 Rome Masters and the 2021 Miami Masters before Rublev reeled off two straight victories at the 2022 Dubai event (in a third-set tiebreaker) and a couple of weeks later in Indian Wells.
After beating Rublev two years ago in the Miami semifinals, Hurkacz went on to win what is still the most important trophy of his career (d. Jannik Sinner). The 17th-ranked Pole advanced to a second Masters 1000 final last summer in Montreal but lost to Pablo Carreno Busta. Hurkacz has now given himself another shot at a second triumph at this level following Shanghai wins over Thanasi Kokkinakis, Yu Hsiou Hsu, Zhizhen Zhang, Fabian Marozsan, and Sebastian Korda. The 26-year-old needed a third-set tiebreaker against Zhang and also went to three sets with Marozsan.
Following a pair of Masters 1000 runner-up performances in 2021 (Monte-Carlo and Cincinnati), the third time was the charm for Rublev this spring in Monte-Carlo (d. Holger Rune 5-7, 6-2, 7-5). It has been a stellar season all around for the seventh-ranked Russian, who will officially clinch a spot in the Nitto ATP Finals if he prevails on Sunday. So far in Shanghai he has knocked off Quentin Halys, Adrian Mannarino, Tommy Paul, Ugo Humbert, and Grigor Dimitrov without dropping a single set.
“I’m thinking only to rest and try to recover for tomorrow, because Hubi is so tough to play,” Rublev commented. “He’s one of the players that you don’t want to face because he can beat everyone–with his style of the game, the way he serves, the way he hits the ball. We’ll see.”
Nobody at this tournament has been hitting the ball bigger and cleaner from the back of the court than Rublev, who rarely wins matches he is supposed to lose but almost never loses matches he is supposed to win. Case in point: he has reached nine Grand Slam quarterfinals but is 0-9 in those matches. Although not a massive favorite in this one by any means, Rublev is supposed to win. He has been the best player all fortnight long and will likely finish the job, but he may surrender a set for the first time if Hurkacz’s hot serving continues.
Pick: Rublev in 3
[yop_poll id=”619″]
who ya got?