Andrey Rublev is not playing good tennis right now, and it's very poor timing considering that the US Open is right around the corner.
Andrey Rublev crashing out of the Cincinnati Masters this early is surprising, but perhaps not so much when you zoom out. The Russian did contest a final here in 2021 (l. to Zverev); however, he's been playing poor tennis for a while now.
Rublev crashed out of Wimbledon against Novak Djokovic despite taking the first set, and since then, he's only been relatively decent in Bastad. That event was his first one since the grass season, and he made a great effort to win the trophy.
Defending champion Casper Ruud fell in the final, but Rublev admitted that he 'got lucky' after the match. Rublev said there were far too many lines on his side as well as him apparently not being in the mood to play tennis that day. Even so, he won and partied after, a move he probably regretted after crashing out early at the Hamburg Open a few days later.
In any case, Rublev has now recorded three early exits in a row as he lost early in Hamburg. He lost early last week in Toronto and now lost early in Cincinnati. It's abysmal timing considering that the US Open is right around the corner.
Now to be fair, losing to Emil Ruusuvuori on a hard court is hardly the most egregious thing you can do. The Finish player has lowkey one of the cleanest hitting games on the ATP Tour. Yes, he needs some stars to align for it to last an entire match, but at times it does, and then we have this.
Carlos Alcaraz, for example, barely survived their Madrid Open clash earlier this year, and that's on a surface he doesn't like to play on. The match itself was very close, splitting hairs close. For example, Rublev led 2-0 but lost the lead. He served for the set at 5-4 and then at 6-5 but lost both games.
He then wasted two set points in the tiebreak, allowing Ruusuvuori to convert his 5th to win 12-10. The fightback in the second set was intense, with an early 4-1 lead which he, you guessed it, threw away. He threw away another lead (2-0) in the final set and ultimately lost 7-3 in the tiebreak.
The final score was 7-6(12) 5-7 7-6(3) for Emil Ruusuvuori.
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