Tennis

Gutted Alex de Minaur Plans To Attack Andrey Rublev’s Biggest Achilles Heel For Australian Open Revenge

Tanmay Roy
|Published Feb 16, 2024 01:35PM UTC

It’s been nearly a month since the Australian Open 2024 is over, but players still remember their matches, especially the ones they lost. So much so, that revenge is always on the cards, given the probability of facing the same opponents again being always high. Such is the case with Alex de Minaur vs Andrey Rublev at the Rotterdam Open quarterfinals.

Alex de Minaur and Andrey Rublev last met just a month ago at the 4th round clash of the opening Majors. de Minaur, whose dream was to win the AO in front of his home crowd, lost to Rublev by 4-6, 7-6 (7-5), 7-6 (7-4), 3-6, 0-6. The last ‘Bagel’ set was especially a dent in how he went out. Now, meeting again at the Rotterdam Open 2024, de Minaur will be gunning to beat Rublev. It would serve more than one purpose for the Australian player.

Alex de Minaur will get his sweet revenge if he beats Rublev, possibly in three sets. Moreover, Alex de Minaur ranks 11th in the ATP world rankings and stands a chance to great chance to enter back into the Top 10. de Minaur was ranked 10th in January 2024 but slipped to 11th post AO.

However, if he beats Rublev and reaches the semifinals of the tournament, de Minaur will end up at No.9, which would be his career-best so far. He would also become the first Australian player to achieve such a feat after two-time Grand Slam winner Lleyton Hewitt.

Another factor that may benefit de Minaur in his cause, although an outward one, is that Rublev also tends to lose most of his matches in a tournament’s quarter-final stage. If one were to glance at his Grand Slam record, it is peppered with quarter-final finishes at every Majors. Before this year, when he lost to Jannik Sinner, he twice reached the quarter-final of the Australian Open. In 2021, he lost to Daniil Medvedev, and in 2023 he lost to Novak Djokovic. All of them were in straight sets.

Andrey Rublev has also reached the French Open quarterfinals twice and the US Open once. In the 2020 Roland Garros, Rublev lost to Tsitsipas in straight sets, and in 2022, he lost to Marin Cilic. In 2023, Rublev reached the quarter-finals for the first time and lost to Novak Djokovic. Besides the three Majors, Andrey Rublev is also a four-time quarter-finalist of the US Open. In 2017, 2020, 2022, and 2023, Rublev lost to Rafael Nadal, Daniil Medvedev, Frances Tiafoe, and Daniil Medvedev respectively.

That is a massive number of quarter-final losses at Grand Slams, a total of 10 times. This will provide some comfort to Alex de Minaur mentally since he has a reason to believe that Rublev will feel the jitters.

Alex de Minaur vs Andrey Rublev prediction and other details

The Alex de Minaur vs Andrey Rublev match will take place at the Rotterdam Open 2024 at 8.45 AM ET on Friday. de Minaur beat David Goffin in straight sets of 6-1, 6-3 to reach the quarter-final, whereas Rublev beat Felix-Auger Aliassime by 3-6, 7-6 (8-6), 7-5. The SportsRush’s Alex de Minaur vs Andrey Rublev prediction is for the Australian to win despite the fact that beating Rublev is no easy task in an ATP event especially.

The match will stream live online on Tennis TV. The US audience can watch it on Tennis Channel and the UK audience can watch it on Sky Sports. The weather in Rotterdam is still chilly, although it’s slightly on the higher side during the afternoon. At 2 pm, the temperature is 11 degrees Celsius, with a wind speed is 19 km/h, and humidity is 93%.

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About the author

Tanmay Roy

Tanmay Roy is a Cricket Journalist at The SportsRush, whose lifelong passion and zeal for the Gentleman's Game landed him this position. A writer with 787 articles under him, Tanmay started out as a fast bowler himself, who played and captained his school cricket team, Tanmay followed the likes of Alan Donald, Kapil Dev, Dale Steyn, Shoaib Akhtar, etc. which peaked his interest in the sport at an early age. Tanmay later on took to batting, although he enjoys hitting in the slog overs as a lower order the most. An ardent fan and follower of cricket since Sourav Ganguly aka Dada waved his shirt off at Lord's balcony, Tanmay's 20+ years of devotion towards cricket brings him the joy and satisfaction required from a job as he pens down articles based on factual knowledge, analysis and his own perspective. Of late, a huge fan of Jasprit Bumrah, Shaheen Shah Afridi and Mohammed Shami, Tanmay enjoys to watch fast bowling more than anything. Among other athletes, he is a huge fan of Lionel Messi, Roger Federer, PV Sindhu.