Rublev makes history in Doha while Bautista downs Thiem for the semifinal

Thursday, 11 March 2021 at 21:25

It has been a truly eventful day at the Qatar Open in Roma that saw some stellar performances such as the one from Bautista Agut and Rublev who made history.

Making history is an interesting phrase that does not necessarily have positive meanings. Luckily for Andrey Rublev, it does because he reached the Qatar Open semifinal without playing a single point. How? Well firstly as a seeded player he had a 1st round bye, in the 2nd round Richard Gasquet withdrew before the match, and so did Marton Fucsovics in round 3. That allowed Rublev to become the first play to reach a semifinal without playing a single point Joining him in the semifinals will be Roberto Bautista Agut who downed Thiem in an epic match 7-6(3) 3-6 6-4 in two and a half hours of play.

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Bautista Agut did not play well in the past few weeks as he had some fitness issues that prevented him from playing his best. Those issues are long gone it seems because he put forward an amazing performance to down Dominic Thiem in three sets. Besides, the opening two games which were shaky Bautista played the perfect set not dropping many points on his serve and playing well on Thiem's. He had break points but Thiem saved them so we ended up in a tiebreak where Roberto reigned supreme and won it 7-3. The 2nd set was not played well by Bautista as he allowed Thiem to play his game and the Austrian rolled him 6-3.

The final set was a spectacle as Bautista once again raised his level and flew all over the court. Every attack by Thiem was fended off successfully and the Austrian got frustrated quickly. He lost the first game but pulled the break back in the next game. A few games later he lost his serve again and with all his best efforts he could not get it back. Bautista emerged victorious after a brilliant performance.