Top seed Andrey Rublev crashes out of the Kremlin Cup in Moscow

Andrey Rublev arrived in Moscow as the top seed and the Russian was widely seen as the number one favourite to win the trophy.

That won't be happening as Rublev slipped up in his first match at the event losing out to Adrian Mannarino. It was another disappointing loss for Rublev who is not playing good tennis lately. The Russian looked very good early on breaking Mannarino midway through for a 5-2 lead. The Frenchman came back to make it 5-5 breaking Rublev when he served for the set.

He nonetheless won the set with 7-5 after a fierce battle in the final two games. The 2nd set was when things started going badly for Rublev. The Russian lost his serve early giving Mannarino a 3-1 lead. He would pull it back to make it 3-3 before losing his serve once again. At 5-4, Mannarino served for the set but lost his serve only to win the set after all in the tiebreak.

Before sending it to the tiebreak Rublev failed to convert a match point which ended up being the only one he had all match. Rublev played a messy tiebreak losing it 4-7 and things got only worse after that. Mannarino simply found a way to frustrate Rublev who, on return, could not do anything. The Russian did not force a single break point in the 2nd set struggling especially with getting the ball into the court.

Meanwhile, he lost his serve rather early as well giving Mannarino the 3-1 lead which gave the Frenchman even more confidence. In the end, he closed it out with 6-4 to move. Interestingly enough they played in the2019 final with Rublev winning that match. This time around it was Mannarino winning 5-7 7-6(4) 6-4.