Winner's Circle: Rublev doubles up in Adelaide

Welcome to another edition of Winner's Circle, a segment where we review each winner of every ATP and WTA tournament during the truncated 2020 season.

Join us as we relive Andrey Rublev's hot-form to begin the 2020 ATP season, as he captured his second consecutive ATP title of the year.

Adelaide International
Winner: Andrey Rublev

Following his amazing run in Doha, Russian Andrey Rublev broke into the Top 20 for the first time in his career. The World No.18 was looking to build off his impressive performance at the subsequent Adelaide Open, where he was seeded third.

With this being the inaugural edition, no participant could claim to have an advantage at the event. However, top seed and home favorite Alex De Minaur was forced to withdraw due to injury. This left Canadian Felix-Auger Aliassime [2] as the highest-seeded player, allowing Italian lucky loser Salvatore Caruso a place in the main draw.

Auger-Aliassime had little difficulty making it to the quarterfinals, as did Rublev. The Russian defeated Sam Querrey 6-3 6-3 in his opening round match, improving to 2-1 in meetings against the American.

Rublev faced much tougher opposition in the last eight, battling past Britain's Daniel Evans 6-4 3-6 6-3 in two hours. Awaiting him in the semifinals was Auger-Aliassime, who brushed past Australian wildcard Alex Bolt 6-3 6-0.

In a highly-contested and thrilling epic, Rublev defeated the Canadian youngster 7-6(5) 6-7(7) 6-4. The three-hour encounter saw Rublev remain undefeated against Auger-Aliassime, improving his record to 2-0 against his opponent.

Now in his second consecutive final in as many weeks, Rublev faced qualifier Lloyd Harris. The South African had upset Cristian Garin [6] and Pablo Carreno Busta [4] en route to his first ATP final. After battling past American Tommy Paul 6-4 6-7(3) 6-3, Harris was faced with the unenviable task of beating a red-hot Rublev.

Despite his magical run to the final, Harris was unable to overcome the remarkable 22-year old. Rublev prevailed 6-3 6-0 in under an hour, securing his second consecutive title in the process.

Rising in the ATP rankings to No.16, the Russian was suddenly a dark horse pick to claim the upcoming Australian Open.

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