Surprise in the last sixteen of the TERRA WORTMANN OPEN: Fourth seed Andrey Rublev failed to beat world number 63 Tomas Martin Etcheverry after a three-set thriller. While the two-time Halle finalist appeared frustrated and impatient, the Argentinian played an outstanding match. After just over three hours of play, Etcheverry triumphed 6:3, 6:7(4), 7:6(6), having fended off two match points shortly beforehand.
At the beginning, everything looked as expected. Rublev endeavoured to control the match with his forehand, pushed his opponent back under pressure and quickly took a 3:1 lead. But Etcheverry hit back immediately: with few mistakes, good serves and strong forehand counters, the outsider unnerved Rublev more and more with every minute. Etcheverry won five games in a row, while the error-prone world number 14 expressed his frustration loudly on several occasions.
Rublev disappeared into the stadium's catacombs for a few minutes during the set break before the spectators were presented with a similar picture to the first set. Rublev initially took control of the game, pinning Etcheverry on his backhand and converting with a forehand winner to take an early break lead. However, Etcheverry was not long in coming up with an answer. He initiated the immediate re-break with a great forehand counter-attack, only to pull away again to 4:2 a short time later.
However, with his back against the wall, Rublev rebelled once more. The two-time Grand Slam semi-finalist broke back to nil at 5:3, fought off a match point one game later with a strong first serve and levelled the score at 5:5. A short time later, the match went into a tie-break. Rublev quickly pulled away to 5:1 and actually equalised the set with a strong serve. The deciding set was needed.
Here, the two players fought a close neck-and-neck race. The break festival from the first two sets failed to materialise, meaning that neither player was able to gain any significant advantage. Once again, the closest of all decisions had to be made: the tie-break. This is where the drama really came to a head. Rublev took what was supposed to be the decisive blow with the mini-break at 6:4, but then served a double fault on his second match point. Misfortune took its course: at 6:6, Rublev put a simple forehand into the net. One point later, his smash caught on the edge of the net and Etcheverry celebrated reaching the quarter-finals of a grass court tournament for the first time.
After his first top 20 win of the current season, Etcheverry will now face Karen Khachanov. The 29-year-old had previously prevailed in a wild rollercoaster against the Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime.
