Tsitsipas: Champions in Abu Dhabi, Stefanos won 2-1 set from Rublev

Stefanos Tsitsipas won his 3rd match at the Mubadala Tennis World Championship exhibition tournament in Abu Dhabi by defeating the defending champion Andrey Rublev in the final 6-2, 4-6, 6-2.

With that victory, the Greek tennis player received an unusual rematch against Rublev for his loss at the ATP Finals in Turin about a month ago in the group stage, a defeat that denied the world No. 4 a place in the event’s semifinals.

Tsitsipas, who lost the title to Rafa Nadal in 2019 (on his debut), started the final impressively by winning the first 4 games of the match and winning 100% points on 1st serve (8/8) by scoring 2 outs took advantage of 3 break opportunities.

With a return of an excellent 50%, but also his service at a high level, Tsitsipas made the sentence his own in just over half an hour.

The only moment Rublev threatened Tsitsipas’ service in the 1st set was in the 6th game where he managed to get two break points, however the Greek tennis player erased them and achieved it with a difficult 5-1.

A 1st set that Tsitsipas completed with 65% on the first serves and won 77% of the points (17/22), but also with 42% in the 2nd set (5/12) while simultaneously scoring 2/ 3 break points.

In the second leg of the final, Rublev felt more comfortable from the service position and started the set with two loves (2-2) while Tsitsipas at the other end struggled with the Russian’s returns.

Rublev continued to find easy points on his serve, winning 63% of 1st serve points in set 1 and hitting 92%, with Tsitsipas’ return dropping from 46% to 13%!

The Russian made it 5-4 with the Greek tennis player staying in the set, which he failed to do, making two tragic errors in a row at the net that cost him the set and put Rublev 1-1 and the final in the decider.

In the 3rd set, Tsitsipas starts with an impressive break, comes back from 15/40 to 1:0, while he then gets the 2nd game with a loose hold and at the same time a clear lead to victory (2-0).

The cherry on top of the title came in the very next game with Tsitsipas, who was reminiscent of the 1st set, put in a new break (3-0) and immediately after that made it 4-0 with another loose hold up to this point in the set World No. 4 didn’t find the first serve easy (40%) and essentially played with the 2nd in which he hadn’t lost a point (100%).

Rublev lost as in the 1st set in the 5th game (4-1) but that wasn’t enough to change the balance in the deciding set as Tsitsipas easily finished the game and won the title in Abu Dhabi for the 1st time in his career in his 2nd participation in the event.

SOURCE: Tennis24