The first round of an ATP 1000 tournament at Cincinnati, USA (hard). There we have a young Russian who’s passed the qualification facing off against the Georgian, who’s been playing very well recently. To have more insights on this ATP Andrey Rublev vs Nicolas Basilashvili match, please check out the preview below.

 

Andrey Rublev

21 years old Russian, who is currently ranked 70th overall, did not have the best of runs since the hard surface season has started. He’s lost against Gojowczyk at the first round at Washington and against Polmans at the qualification of Montreal. He’s finally passed the qualification here, at Cincinnati, after defeating B. Tomic and M. Kukushkin in 3 sets. Rublev is having the best season playing on hard this year by having 16 victories of 25 matches played overall. Rublev has shown some improvements on his game at the last tournament on clay, where he managed to reach the final. Of course, because he had to go through the qualification, he’s already warmed up on the surface here at Cincinnati and will have a huge advantage compared to Basilashvili.

 

Nicolas Basilashvili

27 years old Georgian has been playing great tennis recently. He’s managed to win 8 out of last 10 matches played including winning the title at Hamburg. Of course, most of these matches were played on clay, but Basilashvili is known for his ability to adapt on every ground he plays, so there would be no surprise to see him translating his good form to hardcourt as well. Basilashvili has already played on hard at Montreal, where he’s dropped out at the second round against A. Zverev in 3 sets. We might see a tough first set for Basilashvili because he hasn’t played in Cincinnati so far as his opponent. So it will be very interesting to see how Basilashvili is going to handle the young opponent.

 

Andrey Rublev vs Nicolas Basilashvili  H2H

Basilashvili is leading the H2H by 2 victories to 1.

 

Article image is taken from https://www.atptour.com/en/players/nikoloz-%20%20basilashvili/bg23/overview