Alexander Bublik is facing a rather odd prospect of potentially losing in the first round of Wimbledon, that is if the Halle Open curse continues.
Bublik is a very polarizing tennis player. An undeniable talent whose best tennis is really good but whose motivation and more importantly focus can be all over the place. The top-ranked player from Kazakhstan hasn't had a very good year so far with multiple early exits.
It's left him very frustrated more than once but the tables have turned once he returned to grass. It's by far his favourite surface and it's been reflected in the results as well. His only loss this year on the surface came against Sinner at the Libema Open recently but he put together a sensational run in Halle to advance to the final of the ATP 500 event.
He played Andrey Rublev in the final and proved better than the Russian taking the trophy - his biggest so far in his career. It means a lot to Bublik who played 7 finals before that one winning only once. The second trophy of his career should give him plenty of confidence leading to Wimbledon. Right?
Well, it better, because the Kazakh player is facing something that no player before him overcame yet - the Halle curse. It's this thing where a player that wins the event loses in the first round of Wimbledon after that. It never affected Roger Federer because...well Federer but we've seen it play out six times in the past 10 or so years - basically every time Federer didn't win.
In 2011 it was Philipp Kohlschreiber who won the trophy but lost in the first round in Wimbledon. In 2012 it was Tommy Haas who saw the same thing happen to him. It happened in 2016 with Florian Mayer, in 2018 with Borna Coric, in 2021 with Ugo Humbert, in 2022 with Hubert Hurkacz and now let's see whether Bublik can overcome it.
0 Comments