Doha (Qatar): Andrey Rublev saved one match point and needed eight of his own to subdue Alex de Minaur 6-1, 3-6, 7-6 (8) in the Qatar Open quarterfinals on Thursday.
The long journey to the win prompted Rublev to joke about de Minaur, “I wanna punch him.”
The Russian fifth seed wasted a 5-2 lead in the last set against the Australian second seed, who forced the tiebreaker with remarkable scrambling.
But after 2 1/2 hours, Rublev advanced to his fourth semifinals in Doha, where he won the title in 2020.
He’ll face Canada’s Félix Auger-Aliassime, who beat Daniil Medvedev when the Russian retired after losing the first set 6-3.
“Unfortunately, I had food poisoning. Very disappointed to end my run here in Doha like this as I feel like I was playing well,” Medvedev said in a statement.
Auger-Aliassime said on court he thought Medvedev was “playing normal” until he retired.
“And then I broke, I held my serve. And he just told (the umpire) that he didn’t want to shake our hands because he was sick. I hope it’s nothing too bad. I was surprised,” the Canadian said.
