Sublime Sinner marches on with drubbing of Rublev, Bublik stuns Draper

Top seed Jannik Sinner continued his serene French Open progress with a 6-1 6-3 6-4 dismantling of Russian Andrey Rublev to reach the quarterfinals in ominous fashion on Monday.

Ruthlessly efficient from the baseline, the Italian dissected world number 15 Rublev's game in stunning fashion to make light work of the Court Philippe Chatrier night match.

The 23-year-old, bidding to win a third successive Grand Slam title after his triumphs in New York and Melbourne, has won 12 out of 12 sets so far on the Parisian clay and is beginning to look unstoppable in his quest for a first French crown.

Rublev did not play at all badly, but after failing to convert either of the two break points he had in the opening game he could make little impression.

World number one Sinner was at least pushed hard in the third set as Rublev threw caution to the wind but he pounced to break the Russian's serve in the 10th game to stretch his streak of wins in Grand Slams to 18 matches.

“I'm very, very happy because things can turn very quickly in a bad way in best of five sets,” said Sinner, who served a three-month doping ban before returning to action in Rome last month.

Rublev had beaten Sinner twice before, including once last year, and also prevailed when the two met at the same stage of the French Open in 2022, albeit when Sinner retired hurt.

This time, however, the accuracy and ferocity of Sinner's ground strokes left the Russian scrambling just to try to hang on to his opponent's coat tails.

Initially, when Rublev belted away a forehand winner to leave Sinner at 15-40 down in the opening game, it looked like it could be a contest. But the Italian swatted away that early danger before delivering a masterclass for the evening crowd.

Only three unforced errors came off his racket in set one and he offered up only a few more in the second as he barely appeared to be breaking sweat.

Sinner only had to save one more break point, at 2-2 in the third set, but by that stage the match was already heading for its predictable conclusion.

He will have to face a very different sort of test in the quarterfinals when he faces Kazakhstan's Alexander Bublik who stunned fifth seed Jack Draper with a spellbinding four-set win.

Also in Monday's late session, Draper was sent packing when he stumbled to a 5-7 6-3 6-2 6-4 defeat against mercurial Bublik.

The result ended the British presence in the singles at Roland Garros as Draper, seeded fifth, lost the plot after a promising opening set against Bublik, who will now face Russia's Andrey Rublev or world number one Jannik Sinner of Italy.

Draper, who had never got past the first round in Paris before this year, burst into the limelight by reaching the US Open semifinals in 2024 and had high hopes for the clay court Grand Slam having reached the Madrid Open final last month.

But Bublik tortured him with a barrage of drop shots (37), 12 of them winners, as he showed his full potential on the biggest stage to reach his maiden Grand Slam quarterfinal.

“You know, sometimes in life there is only one chance and I had the feeling that today was mine, I was not going to let it slide,” an emotional Bublik said on court.

“Standing here is the best moment of my life, period. That's amazing, merci mesdames et messieurs,” he told the crowd, who broke into chants of 'Bubu, Bubu!'.

“I'm standing here like I won the thing. I can't cry here, let me be in peace, I'm a professional tennis player, I've got one more match, I've got to get ready.”

After getting the measure of Draper's heavy hitting, Bublik loosened up and the last three sets were one-sided.

Things got tight when he served for the match as the man who took a trip to Vegas to unwind so he could come back and outplay the 'Robots' on the circuit served two double faults and got a taste of his own medicine when Draper set up break point with a superb drop shot.

But Bublik, who will be back in the top 50 after a free-fall from 17th place, closed it out with a big serve to the delight of the supporting crowd. 

Reuters