Andrey Rublev cruised through to the second round at the Australian Open after beating Germany’s Yannick Hanfmann 6-3 6-4 6-4 on John Cain Arena one week after winning the ATP Cup title with the Russian team at Melbourne Park.
Hanfmann, who was making his main draw debut at the Australian Open, earned an early break to open up a 2-0 lead. Rublev fought back by breaking three times to seal the first set 6-3.
Rublev broke twice in the second and eighth games and closed out the second set 6-4 with his 12th ace. The Russian top 10 player earned two more breaks in the fifth and ninth games to wrap up the third set 6-4 after 1 hour and 41 minutes.
Rublev won five ATP Tou titles in Doha, Adelaide, Hamburg, St. Petersburg and Vienna and qualified for the ATP Finals in London for the first time in his career during his breakthrough season in 2020.
“I don’t know if it’s the best tennis in my career, but for sure I am showing great tennis at the moment. I was showing a really high level at the ATP Cup, and I am really happy that I am winning match by match. We played for the first time, and I started a bit tight, but this is normal, and I was really happy that I could control the match almost since the beginning. In the end, I was the one who was controlling the match, so I am really happy that I could finish the match quite confident in these sets”, said Rublev.
Rublev set up a second round match against last week’s Murray River Open quarter finalist Thiago Monteiro, who beat Andrej Martin 7-6 (8-6) 6-1 6-2.
Radu Albot came back from one set down to beat 2019 Australian Open quarter finalist Roberto Bautista Agut 6-7 (1-7) 6-1 6-4 7-6 (7-5) after 3 hours and 15 minutes. The Moldovan player will take on Christopher O’Connell in the second round. Last year’s Vienna Open finalist Lorenzo Sonego broke once in each set and did not face any break points in his 7-5 6-4 6-4 win over Sam Querrey. The Italian player reached the Australian Open second round for the second time in his career. He set up a match against Feliciano Lopez, who fought past Austrlalian wild card Li Tu 6-7 (1-7) 6-4 7-6 (7-4) 6-4 after 2 hours and 46 minutes.
