The curtain has fallen on the Montecarlo Masters1000. Particularly intense days on the red clay of the Principality and the epilogue was surprisingly favorable to the Russian Andrey Rublev. The native of Moscow imposed himself, in comeback, against the Dane Holger Rune with the score of 5-7 6-2 7-5recovering incredibly from an evident disadvantage in the third set (1-4 and 1-5 ball for Rune).
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Tennis, however, is a particular sport also for this reason and the Dane’s physical and mental energies have failed, also considering what had happened on the previous day, i.e. in the second semifinal against Jannik Sinner. A difficult and very tight match, which lasted almost three actual hours of play, but decidedly lengthened due to the arrival of the rain, which changed the cards on the speed of the field.
The latter aspects in which the youngster born in 2003 proved to be better than the South Tyrolean, who instead under more “normal” conditions had been dominant in the first set (6-1). We talked about this and more in the last episode of TennisMania Special Montecarlodaily appointment conducted by Dario Puppo are Sport2U, web tv of OA Sport, with guest iThe director of “Il Tennis Italiano”, Stefano Semeraro.
We started by talking about the meaning of Rublev’s victory and Semeraro defined it like this: “It was the success of the good side of Russia and of its generation, which has always sided in favor of peace. Andrey was able to make perfect use of the efforts of the previous match faced by Rune, recovering and closing with authority“.
Speaking about the match with Sinner, Puppo launched the topic of how the Dane exploited the psychological weapon to his advantage. One look at that Semeraro elaborated: “LHis is like Medvedev, a great agonist who exalts himself when he has the public against whom he provokes in his own way, but we are very far from the things that characters like McEnroe and Connors did. From a tennis perspective, he is a fantastic player who knows how to do many things and is part of that group of players with great future prospects, including our Sinner“.
Speaking of the South Tyrolean, the director of “Il Tennis Italiano” did not mince words: “Jannik missed a great opportunity, it seemed like a tournament made for him. This does not mean that he is not a great player, we expect him to win an important tournament and I am convinced that he will soon, but it must be admitted that this time he missed a great opportunity. For heaven’s sake, there’s no shortage of extenuating circumstances in his match, but in tennis you have to adapt to everything that happens, even to extreme conditions from a meteorological point of view or to a somewhat over-the-top opponent. Even Sinner knows it perfectly, he is not the type to make excuses and for this very reason what happened will give him fuel to win soon, on any surface“.
A Sinner who will already play in Barcelona, following up on the Monegasque commitment: “Yes, we’ll see him in Spain and I think he’s doing very well from a physical point of view. It has an athlete structure, different from last year. He has improved in many aspects, even if one thing above all absolutely needs to be developed and I’m referring to the service that he really abandoned against Rune, especially in the third set. When so many break points are offered in batting rounds, it is inevitable that sooner or later the opponent will be able to hit the target. Rune, then, was very able to find countermeasures after the clear 6-1 suffered in the first set. He took two / three steps back in response, and Sinner no longer found the feeling he previously had and therefore these are things he can and must improve on“, the opinion of Semeraro.
VIDEO INTERVIEW STEFANO SEMERARO
Photo: LaPresse
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