Andrey Rublev is the 'most proud' he's ever been after defying adversity in Madrid victory

Sometimes, when you watch Andrey Rublev play, you might wonder why he’s losing his mind.

“OK, you missed a forehand, or you went down a break, or you blew an easy shot, but is that a good reason to pound yourself with your racquet until you draw blood?”

On Sunday in Madrid, though, it was a little easier to understand the Russian’s mounting frustration as his final with Felix Auger-Aliassime progressed. After digging himself an early two-break hole, Rublev spent most of the last two-and-a-half sets building leads on Auger-Aliassime’s service games, only to watch helplessly as the Canadian wiped them away with an ace or a service winner, or, on a couple of occasions, a groundstroke that clipped the outside of the sideline. Any player who fails to convert eight of 11 break points in such a big match would have been pleading with the tennis gods to give him a break, the way Rublev was.

Especially frustrating was the fact that, after his 1-4 start, Rublev was the better player once a rally began. He held his own serve routinely. He hammered many of his returns within a foot of the baseline. He took hard-hit balls off the short hop and reflexed winning passing shots. He exposed Auger Aliassime’s shaky backhand. He won 60% of his second-serve points, while Auger-Aliassime won just 36.

Auger-Aliassime, largely on the strength of 14 aces, hung on to the bitter end of each of the last two sets. But each time, serving at 5-6, he cracked. In the second set, he made three groundstroke errors and was broken. In the third set, with the title on the line, he double-faulted twice, the second time at match point. Rublev, after all of that mounting ainxiety, was happy to accept the gift, and a 4-6, 7-5, 7-5 win for his second Masters 1000 crown.

“The most proud title of my career,” Rublev said.

There are a few reasons why Rublev would say that. First, according to him, it was a physically trying last 10 days. He was suffering from a mystery illness, maybe angina, that made it “impossible to swallow, impossible to eat, and headache because of it,” and left his fingers and feet inflamed to the point where he couldn’t put his shoes on. Only a regimen of injections and painkillers allowed him to play.

“The doctors, they’re magicals,” Rublev said.

Then there was the mental challenge. At the start of March, Rublev had been defaulted for unsportsmanlike conduct in Dubai, and had gone 1-4 in the two months since—a pretty shocking collapse for someone who started the season by making the quarters at the Australian Open. But everything came back together for him in Madrid, where he ended Carlos Alcaraz’s two-year title streak, and proved clutch in the final.

Clutch, and calm: Whether he was closing out Alcaraz or watching Auger-Aliassime’s aces fly past him, Rublev never went berserk. On Friday he was asked: Has Dubai changed him?

“It’s a tough question,” he said. “I had many, many, how you say, warnings in life already that show me that I need to be more calm. So was not only with Dubai, but was in general many times that I was close to do something not good, and I was lucky that everything went well.

“I would like to think that it’s more that I’m getting more improvement, me improving, and not because of the ‘warnings.’ I would like to believe that it’s me who is the one who is improving.”

Whatever the reason, this week Rublev showed himself what he can do when he stays cool.

Whether it was Carlos Alcaraz, a mystery illness, a two-month dry spell, or 14 aces from his opponent in the final, Rublev kept calm and conquered them all.