Getting into a survival of the fittest kind of battle with Alex de Minaur generally isn’t a good idea. That’s exactly what Andrey Rublev did on Sunday night at the Australian Open, but he lived to tell about it.
“I started to say to myself, ‘No, you’re gonna die today, but you will do everything,’” Rublev said after defeating De Minaur 6-4, 6-7(5), 6-7(4), 6-3, 6-0 in the fourth round. “Somehow I started to play better and better and I found more energy and I was able to win.
Rublev was on the ropes after losing a pair of tiebreakers to trail two sets to one. However, his ruthless offensive attack kept De Minaur on defense–as usual–and that left both players digging deep into their energy reserves over the course of four hours and 14 minutes. Even when Rublev began to roll through the fifth set without losing a single game, he was never out of the woods until the final ball was struck. That’s because the fifth-ranked Russian felt leg cramps coming on throughout the decider, but they never seriously impacted his play. If anything, Rublev became even more offensive early in points–and that strategy paid off.
In the end, Rublev broke the hearts of the Aussie crowd and booked a spot in his 10th Grand Slam quarterfinal.
“We’ve played a couple of times and all of them were dramatic like now,” the 26-year-old said of De Minaur. “When you play four hours, long rallies and you try to stretch…I started to feel a bit of pain, but it’s normal after four hours with intensity like this. I was just trying not to think about it, just trying to push myself to do everything I could.
“Don’t cry, don’t start to feel sorry for yourself…. Just keep fighting and we’ll see what’s going to happen.”
What will happen next for Rublev is a Tuesday showdown against Jannik Sinner, who beat Karen Khachanov in straight sets. Rublev is 0-9 lifetime in major quarterfinals.
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