Sometimes you just to have stop worrying. Stop strategizing. Stop thinking too much. Stop playing it safe. Stop weighing the percentages. That’s the stage Andrey Rublev had reached as he began the third set of his final with Jack Draper in Doha on Saturday.
“I let go of everything,” the Russian said.
By that point, Rublev was too tired, and too frustrated, to do much else.
Forty-eight hours earlier, he had beaten Alex De Minaur 10-8 in a third-set tiebreaker, on his eighth match point. Twenty-four hours after that, he had beaten Felix Auger-Aliassime, 7-5 in a third-set tiebreaker, in a match that ended with a flurry of full-throttle rallies.
Against Draper, Rublev had won the first set and was two points from what might have been a match-ending break of serve late in the second set. But then he had watched—and screamed, and slammed his racquet—as Draper suddenly upped his pace, took control of the points, and won the final three games to level the match at a set each.
But instead of letting his rage overwhelm him, as he has many times in the past, Rublev put it in the rear-view mirror, along with everything else. He broke Draper’s serve with a winning backhand return; the shot, it turned out, also broke the Brit’s spirit. Draper had also won his share of three-setters this week, but this turned out to a set too far for him.
