As predicted, Alex de Minaur beat the young Italian Flavio Cobolli in the third round of the 2024 Australian Open by 6-3, 6-3, 6-1. de Minaur will now face Andrey Rublev of Russia in the fourth round. Rublev too won his match against a well-set opponent Sebastian Korda. Most predicted Rublev to win, as did happen.
The tournament has finally reached its fourth round and every clash is a mouth-watering contest. For de Minaur, he comfortably knocked out Cobolli in the third round by 6-3, 6-3, 6-1. Ever since Milos Raonic’s injury forced him to retire hurt against de Minaur in the first round, the Australian has upped his game. In the second round too, he beat Italian Matteo Arnaldi in straight sets. The score was 6-3, 6-0, 6-3.
Andrey Rublev, too, is having fun at the tournament, barely letting any match go past the third set. After his close brush with a loss against Thiago Seyboth-Wild in the first round, he has looked indomitable. He beat Korda, a fine prospect, in the third round by 6-2, 7-6 (8-6), 6-4. The game was pretty much one-sided from the start and Rublev didn’t let the American settle in at any point in time. Before that, he had knocked Christopher Eubanks in straight sets of 6-4 each.
De Minaur reached the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam last in the 2020 US Open. That was the furthest he reached in any Grand Slam to date. Rublev, on the other hand, has been making it to the Top 8 very consistently since the 2017 US Open, his first Grand Slam quarter-finals. He has reached 9 quarter-finals across all four Grand Slams to date. Unfortunately, on every occasion, he hasn’t been able to cross that stage. Could he make it his 10th this time or will de Minaur reach his 2nd quarter-finals?
The winner between them will play the winner of the match between Jannik Sinner and Karen Khachanov. As per predictions, it looks like a Sinner vs Rublev quarter-final is on the cards.
Alex de Minaur and Andrey Rublev Head-to-head stats
Alex de Minaur, despite his current form, is a 10th-seeded player in the tournament and will have to play out of his skin to beat 5th-seeded Rublev. Anticipated to be one of the toughest clashes before the quarter-finals, both these players stand a good chance to win. However, records and statistics suggest that Rublev has a slight advantage.
In alignment with their seeds, the Russian also ranks 5, and the Australian ranks 10 in the ATP World Rankings. This is one of the clashes that has happened several times in the past, five to be precise. While rankings and present performance might slide with Rublev, de Minaur wins their head-to-head battle 3-2.
They first met at the ATP Washington in 2018, when de Minaur won the match by 5-7, 7-6, 6-4. The same year, they met again at the Next Gen ATP Finals, where de Minaur won again by 4-1, 3-4, 4-1, 4-2 and took a clear 2-0 lead over Rublev in the head-to-head. Four years later at the ATP Monte Carlo, Rublev won against de Minaur for the first time by 2-6, 6-1, 6-4. Then in 2023, de Minaur won again at the ATP Rotterdam by 6-4, 6-4. Their last outing was at the ATP Paris in 2023, where Rublev won by 4-6, 6-3, 6-1.
It has been a see-saw battle between the two players, although neither have met in the Grand Slam to date. This year’s Majors will be the first time they play each other.
Rublev also leads with 83% efficiency in serves to win, as compared to de Minaur’s 75%. Therefore, chances are he might get the better of his opponent who got the better of him in their previous meet-ups. Their match is scheduled for Sunday at 7:00 pm in the Rod Laver Arena.
Alex de Minaur looks set to continue his good run of form and his campaign at the Australian Open 2024 by beating Andrey Rublev in 5 grueling sets.
