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Andrey Rublev Australian Open 2021
ATP Tennis Players, Tennis News

‘His high level did not surprise me,’ Andrey Rublev overcomes Sebastian Korda to reach first Miami Open semi-final


Andrey Rublev defeated an admittedly hampered Sebastian Korda in straight sets to secure a semi-final berth at the Miami Open

Andrey Rublev came through in a well-fought match over a bold but eventually injury diminished Sebastian Korda 7-5 7-6 to reach a first ever Masters 1000 semi-final.

“I mean it was not easy,” Rublev said immediately following the match. “Like you said with the rain delay you always have to restart and it’s not easy, especially with my type of game.”

A long rain delay pushed play an hour later than scheduled, while the two men had to deal with windy conditions during the match itself.

“Sebastian [Korda] is such a great player and I was a bit lucky that he was hurt in the end and he was not moving well.

“I think that was the key.” Korda showed signs of injury towards the end of the second set, but broke to love from 5-3 down to extend the match to an eventual tiebreak.

“In the end it was just because he was hurt and you can feel that as I played the set he was not moving.”

“He was going for every shot and in the end it’s not easy. One or two times he’s gonna miss and in the end it happened, he hit a double fault, he missed one shot and then that was it.”

“But, I was not surprised [with Sebastian’s high level] because I knew how he was playing,” Rublev said crediting Korda.

“I practised with him last year, he beat great players so I was not surprised.

“He’s a really great player, really talented and I wanna just wish him all the best.”

Andrey Rublev will face Hubert Hurkacz for a place in the final.

Read about Hurkacz’s win over Stefanos Tsitsipas here.


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