Andrey Rublev
PROS: His father was a boxer, and Rublev brings that puncher’s mentality to tennis. He smacks most shots as hard as his wiry 6'2", 165-pound physique can generate. After winning a Tour-high five titles in 2020, the 24-year-old Russian attained a career-high No. 5 ranking this year. At the last three majors, though, Rublev suffered disappointing five-set losses to middleechelon players — No. 42 Jan Lennard Struff at the French Open, No. 4■ Marton Fucsovics at Wimbledon, and No. 50 Frances
Tiafoe at the US Open. Even so, he otherwise shined on every surface. Rublev reached the
Halle final and Wimbledon fourth round on grass, stunned Nadal en route to the Monte
Carlo final on clay, and upset Medvedev to make the Cincinnati final. He also defeated
Tsitsipas while winning the Rotterdam tournament on hard courts.
CONS: On his biggest weakness, Rublev said, “I would say the mental part. This is the main [thing] because the players who are better than me, they know how to manage all these [big-point] moments much better than me.” That weakness was manifested in his close loss to Ruud at the ATP Finals where his nervous second serve barely exceeded ■0 mph in the deciding set. Accordingly, his No. 17 ranking in the Under Pressure category, and particularly his mediocre 50 per cent success rate in tiebreakers, need to improve markedly for the Russian to reach a Grand Slam final.