The next of the favourites to win the tournament is through to the round of 16. But 25 year-old Andrey Rublev, no. three-seeded at this year’s TERRA WORTMANN OPEN and the world’s no. 7 had to invest much more time than he anticipated. Instead of ending the match after two sets Rublev needed three rounds against debutant Yibing Wu from China. In the end the score was 6:4; 6:7(5) and 6:2.
But first things first, Rublev won the first set relatively superiorly 6:4, in the second he broke Wu to 4:3 and serving at a score of 5:4 had it all to go straight through. But Wu scored eight points in a row and all of a sudden was leading 6:5. Rublev was confused, saved himself, though, into the tiebreak. The Chinese player got this one 7:5. Rublev, who had lost the finals at the TERRA WORTMANN OPEN to French player Ugo Humbert back in 2021, found back into the match and quickly went into the lead in the third set and finalized the match 6:2.
Wu caused a bit of a stir in the tennis world in February because he was the first ever Chinese player in win a title on the ATP tour. The 23 year-old defeated top-10 player Taylor Fritz in Dallas and in the finals star John Isner. Wu had also won the Challenger title in Cleveland ahead of Dallas.
It was the first match on grass for Rublev this year, while his opponent Wu had already played in Stuttgart. He first beat Nick Kyrgios, who was already injury-stricken; he then lost against Marton Fucsovics in the second round. 25 year-old Rublev won the Masters title in Monte Carlo this year already.
23 year-old Wu is the up-and-coming player of the ATP-Tour. The US Open Junior-Champion of 2017, when he was also the world’s junior no. 1, ranked at the world’s no. 326 last year and even at no. 1.089 two years ago. His current ranking is no. 59.
