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Andrey Rublev lost his quarterfinal Roland Garros match last week to Marin Cilic in a fifth-set super-tiebreak. It was Rublev’s fifth slam quarterfinal and his fifth defeat. In the press conference after the Cilic match Rublev’s performances in the slams were questioned, and the Russian attributed his 0-5 record to his mental game:
In a prior piece, I made the argument that Rublev’s issues were not all mental, or more accurately, that they could largely be explained because of his tennis and his opponent’s tennis. An excerpt from that piece:
2017 US Open Nadal def. Rublev 6/1 6/2 6/2. A 19-year-old Rublev got outclassed in this match. Simple as that. Nadal hit more aces, fewer double faults, more winners, fewer errors, and won a monstrous 63% of points. Looking at the highlights you get a sense of just how physical it is playing Rafa; he took Rublev’s fearless teenage hits and just chewed them up. One interesting technical observation from this period in Rublev’s career: his backhand take-back appeared longer and more in line with a traditional full-turn/buttcap facing the opponent. More on that later.
2020 French Open Tsitsipas def. Rublev 7/5 6/2 6/3. While Rublev had beaten Tsitsipas in a tight three-setter in Hamburg just prior to the October-held French Open (due to Covid) Tsitsipas was the higher-ranked player, the bookie’s favourite, and on balance a better clay-courter than Rublev. I can’t find meaningful highlights or a full replay of this match, but Tsitsipas dominated on first-serve (both made 64% of first-serves, but Tsitsipas was winning 80% of his to Rublev’s 66%) and won 63% of second-serve return points to Rublev’s 32%. Their H2H is close, with Tsitsipas leading 5-4, and I am willing to concede that Rublev may be a better player than Tsitsipas on a hard court right now, but on clay, Tsitsipas leads their H2H 3-1, has more big clay titles, and has performed better at RG every year save for this year’s edition.
2020 US Open Medvedev def. Rublev 7/6 6/3 7/6. Again, Medvedev was the higher-ranked player and the strong favourite. I replayed the full match and took some stats. I tracked the winners and errors of each player’s forehand and backhand when under pressure/moving to that side, and when set in position from the baseline. Short ball winners were not counted. I prefer these metrics to the reported winner/error figures as this cuts the noise of easy putaway shots and puts a microscope on a player’s ability to handle pressure from the back of the court. I also tracked how many serves went unreturned on first and second serves.
We can see a huge difference in how many free points Medvedev got on his serve compared to Rublev (Medvedev only hit 2 more double faults as well). 16 more free points to be exact. Interestingly, that’s also the difference in total points won for this match (90 to 106). Off the ground, a few tendencies were evident to me across all three sets.
Australian Open 2021 Medvedev def. Rublev 7/5 6/3 6/2. I couldn’t find anything beyond the linked highlights, but similar to their US Open encounter, Medvedev hit more aces, more winners, fewer unforced errors, and won more return points on first and second serves. In the highlights Rublev did look to take wider stances with his serve to get a better open court with his forehand, and I think this was a smart change up, but I’m not sure that will ever be enough to get the odds in your favour; you need to be able to generate the open court off the ground so you can break serve. Again, if you watch those highlights, notice how wide Medvedev can take a two-hander; full-stretch and he still plays two hands and gets some interest on the ball.
Andrey Rublev lost his quarterfinal Roland Garros match last week to Marin Cilic in a fifth-set super-tiebreak. It was Rublev’s fifth slam quarterfinal and his fifth defeat. In the press conference after the Cilic match Rublev’s performances in the slams were questioned, and the Russian attributed his 0-5 record to his mental game:
Reporter: “Andrey, you have a fantastic record on the tour, but at Slams you just seem to get to the quarterfinals and not be on. Do you know why that is, or is it just a matter of time for you?
Rublev: “No it’s mental. Everything’s mental. I couldn’t manage the emotions the previous times and now was the closest ever I was able to go through and be in semis, but again, the same thing. I didn’t manage the emotions.”
It’s easy to accept the mental narrative when the player in question admits as much, but if we step back and analyse each of these losses, to put these performances down to Rublev’s mental game does a disservice to his opponents (who were all higher-ranked at the time except for Cilic) and assumes his game is on par with these players when an aggregate look at each match-up suggests otherwise. The five quarterfinal losses:“In Rublev’s case, I’m not sure mentality is where he is really lacking. Let’s keep in mind he’s top-10 in the world. Sometimes taking the next step isn’t possible because your peers just take bigger steps (ask Andy Roddick). He works hard and has won plenty of titles. The players ahead of him are simply a little better at tennis—for now.”
2017 US Open Nadal def. Rublev 6/1 6/2 6/2. A 19-year-old Rublev got outclassed in this match. Simple as that. Nadal hit more aces, fewer double faults, more winners, fewer errors, and won a monstrous 63% of points. Looking at the highlights you get a sense of just how physical it is playing Rafa; he took Rublev’s fearless teenage hits and just chewed them up. One interesting technical observation from this period in Rublev’s career: his backhand take-back appeared longer and more in line with a traditional full-turn/buttcap facing the opponent. More on that later.
2020 French Open Tsitsipas def. Rublev 7/5 6/2 6/3. While Rublev had beaten Tsitsipas in a tight three-setter in Hamburg just prior to the October-held French Open (due to Covid) Tsitsipas was the higher-ranked player, the bookie’s favourite, and on balance a better clay-courter than Rublev. I can’t find meaningful highlights or a full replay of this match, but Tsitsipas dominated on first-serve (both made 64% of first-serves, but Tsitsipas was winning 80% of his to Rublev’s 66%) and won 63% of second-serve return points to Rublev’s 32%. Their H2H is close, with Tsitsipas leading 5-4, and I am willing to concede that Rublev may be a better player than Tsitsipas on a hard court right now, but on clay, Tsitsipas leads their H2H 3-1, has more big clay titles, and has performed better at RG every year save for this year’s edition.
2020 US Open Medvedev def. Rublev 7/6 6/3 7/6. Again, Medvedev was the higher-ranked player and the strong favourite. I replayed the full match and took some stats. I tracked the winners and errors of each player’s forehand and backhand when under pressure/moving to that side, and when set in position from the baseline. Short ball winners were not counted. I prefer these metrics to the reported winner/error figures as this cuts the noise of easy putaway shots and puts a microscope on a player’s ability to handle pressure from the back of the court. I also tracked how many serves went unreturned on first and second serves.
We can see a huge difference in how many free points Medvedev got on his serve compared to Rublev (Medvedev only hit 2 more double faults as well). 16 more free points to be exact. Interestingly, that’s also the difference in total points won for this match (90 to 106). Off the ground, a few tendencies were evident to me across all three sets.
- Medvedev defended off his backhand far better; it was very hard for Rublev to get Medvedev in a position where he had to take his left hand off the racquet. In contrast, Rublev often resorted to the chip when he was forced to move to that side more than a couple of steps, and it allowed Medvedev to dictate a lot of rallies and hit more winners overall.
- Medvedev made a lot of uncharacteristic unforced errors in the first set (and probably should have lost it) but his serve was so much more dominant.
- Medvedev hit 17 backhand winners to Rublev’s 2. This isn’t that surprising—Medvedev has a better backhand for sure—but what I think hurts Rublev is his lack of variety on the backhand side; he doesn’t defend as well on that side, but he also doesn’t attack as well either. I’ve written about the technical limitations that I think hold back the Rublev backhand before, but his backhand is still very good, he just doesn’t hit many line balls with it. However, what was interesting (and the same thing held for the Cilic match) was that Medveved completely out-winnered Rublev on the forehand side (7 to 16). I think Rublev’s forehand is one of the best in the business—better than Medvedev’s—but he didn’t create the space to find an open court with his forehand and Medvedev didn’t offer many forehands either; Medvedev was happy hitting backhand cross and when he went line it was often to pull the trigger rather than change direction (which partly explains his high backhand error count).
- In light of recent months watching Alcaraz, it’s painfully obvious how much better Rublev would be if he had a transition game or drop shot in his arsenal. Medvedev played from the stands and Rublev didn’t drop-shot or come in much, and when he did he didn’t look completely comfortable/convincing. Nevertheless, he had good conversion rates at the net in this match when he did come in, and I think he needs to do more of it against the top guys ahead of him.
Australian Open 2021 Medvedev def. Rublev 7/5 6/3 6/2. I couldn’t find anything beyond the linked highlights, but similar to their US Open encounter, Medvedev hit more aces, more winners, fewer unforced errors, and won more return points on first and second serves. In the highlights Rublev did look to take wider stances with his serve to get a better open court with his forehand, and I think this was a smart change up, but I’m not sure that will ever be enough to get the odds in your favour; you need to be able to generate the open court off the ground so you can break serve. Again, if you watch those highlights, notice how wide Medvedev can take a two-hander; full-stretch and he still plays two hands and gets some interest on the ball.