Former Hamburg Open champion Andrey Rublev is out of the event after getting sensationally beaten by Daniel Altmaier.
Altmaier is a very good tennis player, one that is no stranger to producing some head-turning efforts. He's been pretty good this year, with some impressive performances on clay. He had a good run at the Madrid Open and dumped out Jannik Sinner from Roland Garros, among other things.
Returning to clay, on home soil no less, proved quite good for the German as he managed to produce a stunning effort to defeat an in-form Rublev. The Russian just won a trophy in Bastad last week and has a long and good track record in Hamburg, but it's clear that he kind of ran out of gas.
He was nearly beaten in the previous match as he had to save three match points to get it done, but this time around, it wasn't possible. Altmaier played a really stunning match, easily outplaying Rublev in the first set. He didn't lose a single point behind his first serve, didn't allow a single break point, and hit five aces in the 6-2 effort.
The second set didn't go any better for Rublev, who found himself down 0-2 at the start as Altmaier didn't let up. The German was completely in his element, and there was very little that Rublev could do. He could have played a better match it likely wouldn't have made much difference.
The biggest problem for him is that he barely managed to create any kind of pressure with his returns and that's very bad considering it was on clay which should give you more chances than other surfaces.
It only got worse when Altmaier broke him once more for the 5-2 lead, which was enough to close out the match. The final score was 6-2 6-2 for the sensational win in about 75 minutes of play.
0 Comments