It was a great start of the season in Qatar for the young Russian. He did not participate at the 2020 ATP Cup in Australia where his country lost to Serbia in the semifinal as he is no.3 singles player in Russia. Rublev went on to play the tournament in Doha instead and it was a great decision.
Rublev defeated Kukushkin, Herbert and Kecmanovic en route to the final. There, he faced qualifier Corentin Moutet who had a great tournament. The Frenchman defeated players like Raonic, Verdasco or Stan Wawrinka.
However, Rublev was a way too difficult opponent for Moutet. The Russian won the match after an hour and 28 minutes 6-2 and 7-6. It was the 9th victory out of the last 10 matches for Rublev as he will also move up to his career-high 16th place in the ATP Ranking.
After winning the trophy, he said: “It’s amazing. I’m always really happy to play here. I always enjoy my time here and to finally win the title is something special for me. It’s an amazing start to the season for me and I hope I can keep this level. There is still much to work on, but I’m happy to become a Top 20 player. I think this is a good part of me, that I still have a lot of space to improve. I want to try to arrive to my maximum and then we’ll see what’s going to happen.”
[embed]https://twitter.com/atptour/status/1216044610931179521[/embed]