Second seed Andrey Rublev recorded his 15th victory of the season with a 6-3, 6-1 dismissal of American Taylor Fritz in Dubai on Wednesday ...
Second seed Andrey Rublev recorded his 15th victory of the season with a 6-3, 6-1 dismissal of American Taylor Fritz in Dubai on Wednesday to reach the quarter-finals.
The Russian extended his winning streak at 500-level tournaments to 22 victories in a row.
Only Roger Federer has pulled off a longer stretch of wins at this level, with the Swiss amassing 28 consecutive victories at ATP 500 events between 2014 and 2016.
The 23-year-old Rublev saved all six break points he faced against Fritz and will next play Hungarian Marton Fucsovics for a second time in three weeks, with a last-four place at stake.
“I’m really happy I could win in straight sets, quite confident. I’ve known Taylor since juniors and it’s always tough to play against him because he has a huge serve and he’s playing really fast,” said Rublev, who is through to the last-eight stage for the fourth time in as many events in 2021.
Italian teenager Jannik Sinner overcame 2018 champion Roberto Bautista Agut 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 to reach his third quarter-final of the season.
Making his tournament debut this week, the 19-year-old Sinner fired 16 aces during the two-hour, 24-minute battle to set up an encounter with recent Australian Open semi-finalist Aslan Karatsev.
The youngest player in the top...
