Safe to say this has been one of the craziest weeks in recent times on the ATP Tour. I’ll admit my predictions haven’t been great, but it must be said that the amount of upsets we’ve had over the last six days has been insane, from everyone expecting the likes of Medvedev to make the final and either play Zverev or Tsitsipas, we’ve somehow got a Rublev vs Fucsovics final, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be one to miss!
ATP Rotterdam Final Prediction
Head-to-head: 1-1
Andrey Rublev was superb on Saturday against Stefanos Tsitsipas. 36 winners to just 14 unforced errors in two sets against a top six player in the world, read that again, it truly is absurd. Now on a 19 match winning steak in 500 events it’s hard to think if he can be stopped at this level, add to that he’s also won his last six finals, all in the past 18 months.
Facing him Marton Fucsovics run here has been something very unexpected. To think that in round one he was pushed to the very limit by Reilly Opelka in which he needed a final set tiebreak and now he’s in the final. Despite being ranked 59 in the world though it must be said he’s playing at a much higher level than that suggests this week. Not only was he impressive against Tommy Paul in the quarter-finals routing him 6-4 6-3, the win against Borna Coric in the semis 6-4 6-1 was full of world class top 20 tennis, some of the best of his career.
So what will happen in this final? Well they’ve played each other two times, both on clay, and are tied at one a piece though more importantly Rublev won their most recent encounter last October at Roland Garros in four sets. If anything though clay is what Fucsovics would prefer to play this match on as right now Rublev has looked deadly in these still conditions.
Like many others have tried this week, it’s incredibly hard to break the 23 year old down and I can’t see Fucsovics being able to do it for a few sets, the Russian is simply playing top five tennis right now and like his recent losses suggest, it takes the very elite players to stop him these days and even then Tsitsipas more or less got blown away.
I’m not going to write off the Hungarian as given the way this week has gone anything could happen but if Rublev continues where he left off against Tsitsipas it will most definitely be another title win this year and a seventh final in a row on.
Prediction: Rublev in 2
Main Photo:
