Alexander Bublik took on Alexander Zverev at the Halle Open and it was an interesting match with Sasha winning it.
Which Sasha you say? Well, the Bublik one as he played a fabulous match outplaying the other Sascha from the baseline. He managed to win the match in two sets dominating rallies with his superb shot-making. Zverev played a fair match but failed to book his first final since his injury last year.
Bublik is a fascinating player, one that is featured very often on Tennis TV, where we see all sorts of highlights from tennis courts around the world. His return position in the match against Zverev was of particular interest to many as Tennis TV posted a video of Bublik trying to confuse the German.
Zverev built a reputation for committing many double faults earlier in his career as he tried to brute-force his serve. It's cooled down since then but he is still prone to the same mistakes. Bublik tried to bait him into double faults by coming up very close to the net before the serve and then making his way back as Zverev went into his service motion.
You can see his tactics below and this is not the first time players have done something like this. We've seen it both in the ATP and WTA Tour and for Bublik it worked. The German didn't commit many double faults in the match but he was left puzzled by it unsure of how to approach the rallies with some stares towards Bublik showing Zverev's displeasure with the tactic.
It's a great result for Bublik after struggling for much of this year and an unfortunate ending for Zverev who arrived in Halle with a lot of confidence. He spoke about winning trophies ahead of the event and even though that didn't happen the run was still good. On the other hand, Bublik is focused on winning his first title of the season.
"The job is not finished, there is one last match. I am happy but I try to stay focused. I tried to play my game and i am really happy with the win today. Playing Sascha is really tough and I was a bit lucky in the key moments. When you play against a top player like Sascha, you need all the weapons to work."
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