Andrey Rublev entered his match against Jannik Sinner with the mindset that the more the Italian wins, the closer he is to the conclusion of his streak. The Russian, however, couldn’t stand up to the challenge as the World No. 1 secured a 6-2, 6-4 win to extend his head-to-head record to 8-3.
After the match, Rublev revealed the reality of facing Sinner, who is now on a 27-match winning streak, having not lost since his Doha exit in February.
Andrey Rublev Discloses How Jannik Sinner Caused Problems for Him at Italian Open
Sinner has staged a historic run at the Masters 1000 level, emerging as the winner at the last five events, beginning with the 2025 Paris Masters.
Although concerns were raised about the Italian’s form after he lost his first two tournaments of 2026, the Australian Open and the Qatar Open, he has long quashed the concerns.
After winning the Sunshine Double (Indian Wells and Miami), Sinner made a seamless transition to clay, beating Carlos Alcaraz to win his first ATP Masters 1000 on the surface at the Monte-Carlo Masters. He followed the victory with another title at the Madrid Open.
After the Italian Open quarterfinal, Rublev explained that Sinner hardly loses focus. “I would say the toughest is to maintain the focus to maintain this level.”
“I think maybe he gave me a little bit of mistakes maybe when the score was 4-3, second set, he was 40-15 up. One double, 40-30. Easy kind of mistake. Until that, you need to force him to miss. It takes a lot of focus to be able to play that level,” he added.
He further explained their contrasting performance graph during the match. “At 4-2 (in the first set), I already dropped a bit the focus and did easy mistakes. He didn’t even do anything. Without that, he broke me.”
“He did like a few mistakes once. Only maybe second set 4-3 when he was set up and break. Until then he wasn’t giving me free points. You have to force him to miss, or you have to go for a shot to make a winner,” Rublev continued.
Rublev is the only player to have broken Jannik Sinner’s serve at the ongoing event. The latter won rather easily in his matches against Sebastian Ofner, Alexei Popyrin, and Andrea Pellegrino.
MORE: Jannik Sinner Addresses Concerns After Appearing Tired During Italian Open Quarterfinal
Sinner now has no day off as he awaits either Martin Landaluce or former champion Daniil Medvedev in the semifinal on Friday, May 15.
