St. Petersburg: Rublev Rolls In First Match As A Top 10 Player
Andrey Rublev’s time inside the Top 10 of the FedEx ATP Rankings is off to a good start.
Rublev defeated big-serving Canadian Vasek Pospisil 6-2, 6-4 on Tuesday to advance to the second round of the St. Petersburg Open and take a 2-1 lead in their ATP Head2Head series.
Pospisil is dangerous on hard courts, especially indoors. The World No. 79 made the fourth round of the US Open and the final at Marseille earlier this year, but he only won 52 per cent of his service points against the home favourite. Rublev earned four service breaks and won 87 per cent of his first-serve points to move on after one hour and 19 minutes.
On Monday, Rublev reached a career-high World No. 10 following his quarter-final run at Roland Garros. The third seed has won three ATP Tour titles this year and with his triumphs in Doha and Adelaide, he became the first player to lift tour-level trophies in the first two weeks of a season since Dominik Hrbaty in 2004.
[WATCH LIVE 1]Rublev will next play Frenchman Ugo Humbert or Russian qualifier Pavel Kotov for a spot in the quarter-finals.
Elsewhere in his quarter, Serbian Miomir Kecmanovic held off Kazakhstani Mikhail Kukushkin 6-3, 7-6 (7). Kecmanovic recovered from 3/6 down in the second-set tie-break, saving three set points to earn a battle against Cameron Norrie in the second round. The Brit ousted eighth seed Taylor Fritz 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 on Monday.