Andrey Rublev of Russia beat Borna Coric of Croatia 7-6 6-4 in the first round of the Mubadala World Tennis Championship in Abu Dhabi on Friday. The match lasted for a little more than two hours.
Rublev will face World No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz of Spain in the semifinal on Saturday. We will now take a look at two factors that stood out in the match:
#1 Both players struck the ball well in a close first set:
Both players exhibited some exceptional ball-striking on the fast surface of Abu Dhabi in the first set. Rublev, who is known to possess a strong forehand, also manged to hit a few of his backhands with great power to test Coric’s defense.
Coric, meanwhile, tried to move Rublev from side to side playing the angles well, especially with his forehand. The baseline slugfest meant that none of the players could break each other in the set as it went into a tie-break.
Coric started rushing the net more frequently towards the end of the first set, but his move often backfired as Rublev managed to pass him on a few occasions. The Russian got a crucial mini-break in the tie-break and went on to win the first set.
#2 Rublev served well in the second set to finish the match:
The quality of Rublev’s serve improved in the second set as there were a number of unreturned serves by the Russian, including a couple in the final game. The intensity of the baseline exchanges diminished somewhat in the second set, as both players began to tire.
Both players tried to avoid prolonged exchanges from the baseline and went into the net quite often. But it was Rublev who got the first break of the match in the ninth game and then served out the match. Rublev thus also managed to (unofficially) extend his unbeaten run against his Croatian opponent to five matches.
Main Photo from Getty.
