Australia’s Alexei Popyrin, who is ranked No. 62 in the world, beat Russia’s fifth-seeded Andrey Rublev 6-2, 6-4 at the National Bank Open on Monday night to win the biggest singles title of his career.
Popyrin entered the week with two lower-level ATP Tour titles and faced five top-20 players one after another, winning against all of them.
He first defeated No. 11 seed Ben Shelton in the second round, then overcame No. 7 seed Grigor Dimitrov after saving three match points. In the quarterfinals, he came back from a set and a break down to beat No. 4 seed Hubert Hurkacz 7-5 in the third set.
In the semifinals, he beat American Sebastian Korda, who had won the tournament in Washington, D.C., the previous week and was on a nine-match winning streak.
Finally, Popyrin faced Rublev, who was aiming for his third ATP Masters 1000 title and his first on hard courts. However, Rublev had no answers against Popyrin, a player he often trains with in Monte Carlo.
“I played a really, really high level of tennis, which I believed that I could play my whole life. But to put it into six matches in a row against really high-quality opponents is something else,” Popyrin said.
After the match, Popyrin was emotional and cried as he celebrated his victory.
Popyrin won the first seven points of the match, which made it difficult for Rublev to recover. Despite Rublev’s week, which included a win over world No. 1 Jannik Sinner, he could not overcome Popyrin. Rublev will move from No. 8 to No. 6 in the rankings, while Popyrin will climb from No. 62 to No. 23.
“I wanted to make a statement in the first game, and I think I did that, which rattled him a little bit, which was part of the game plan. I just continued from there,” Popyrin said.
