Andrey Rublev survived a marathon to reach the round of 16 at the Cincinnati Open, prevailing in a three-and-a-half hour test against Alexei Popyrin. The No. 9 seed recovered after losing the first set to edge 21st-seeded Popyrin, 6-7 (5), 7-6 (5), 7-5.

Popyrin produced 20 aces and Rublev nearly matched him with 18, but a late break proved decisive. At 6-5, 30-0 for Popyrin, Rublev delivered a telling sequence of returns to take the game and swing the match his way. “I was trying to fight, to keep believing. In the end, somehow out of nowhere at 6-5, 30-0 for him, I make amazing returns. I was able to break him,” Rublev told Prakash Amritraj during a live interview on Tennis Channel. “Both of us deserved to win.”

Rublev saved five of the six break points he faced and moved on after a comeback that continued a theme of recent rematches at the Lindner Family Tennis Center. In the second round he reversed a recent loss to Learner Tien, flipping the script after the American had prevailed in Washington, D.C. The victory over Popyrin was Rublev’s first match against the Australian since their 2024 Montreal final, a result the Russian has had in mind.

His next opponent, Francisco Comesana, stunned Reilly Opelka 6-7 (4), 6-4, 7-5 to advance. Comesana also beat Rublev in the first round at Wimbledon last year, and Rublev acknowledged the pattern in the draw. “It’s gonna be a great challenge for me, because I lost to him the only time we played each other last year in Wimbledon. Looks like this tournament, the draw are rematches,” he said. “First match with Tien, today with Alexei, now again Comesana. I am facing all the players that I lost to. Let’s see where I can get.”

Players have also remarked on the tournament’s extensive renovations. Rublev called the changes “a huge upgrade” and praised the new food access and facilities. © Anita T. Aguilar

Carlos Alcaraz moved to 50 match wins for the year with a straight-sets victory at the Cincinnati Open, defeating Hamad Medjedovic 6-4, 6-4 on Tuesday. The 22-year-old had been pushed to three sets two days earlier, but produced a cleaner performance against his fellow 22-year-old to register the milestone.

Alcaraz is the first player, male or female, to reach 50 wins in 2025. On the men’s tour Alexander Zverev has the next-most wins with 40, while on the women’s side Aryna Sabalenka leads with 49. Jessica Pegula can move closer to that group: she would notch her 38th victory of the year if she wins her third-round match against Magda Linette tonight.

The win in Cincinnati also continued two longer-running threads. With his victory over Medjedovic, Alcaraz remains unbeaten against players younger than him; he is now 10-0 versus younger opponents. More broadly, Alcaraz is the only man to record 50 or more match wins in each of the last four seasons. No other male player can join him in that distinction, because he was the only man to reach 50 wins in 2022, 2023 and 2024.

There is one woman who can match that four-year consistency: Iga Swiatek. Swiatek won 67 matches in 2022, 68 matches in 2023 and 64 matches in 2024, the only woman with those three totals in that span.

Alcaraz’s Cincinnati victory is therefore both a stand-alone milestone and another entry in a sustained run of high-volume winning. The 50th win underscores his place at the top of the season-long charts and highlights how few players, male or female, have combined volume and consistency across multiple seasons.

© 2025 Daniel Kopatsch

Coco Gauff arrives in Cincinnati with momentum and a clear assignment: press forward after a corrective opening round and attempt to erase the sting of a disappointing grass swing. The world No. 2 registered a convincing response two days ago at the WTA 1000 event, and today she faces Dayana Yastremska with an opportunity to address a more recent loss.

After capturing her second Grand Slam title at Roland Garros, Gauff struggled on grass, losing her opening matches at both Berlin and Wimbledon. In Berlin she fell to China’s Wang Xinyu, 6-3, 6-3. In Cincinnati she reversed that result, defeating Wang 6-3, 6-2, converting all five of her break-point chances and fighting off five of the seven break points she faced.

The No. 2-seeded Gauff will meet No. 32-seeded Dayana Yastremska, the player who eliminated her at Wimbledon. Yastremska took Gauff out in straight sets in the first round at the All England Club, 7-6 (3), 6-1. The match in Cincinnati presents Gauff with a direct chance to respond on hard courts at a WTA 1000 tournament.

The sequence is straightforward: a Grand Slam triumph, a difficult grass season, a timely win over a recent Berlin conqueror and now a high-stakes meeting with the player who ended her Wimbledon campaign. The outcome against Yastremska will be an early indicator of whether Gauff can translate her Roland Garros form into the summer hard-court swing.