Aussie on clay: Alexei Popyrin dethrones defending Monte Carlo champ Andrey Rublev

Alexei Popyrin is ready to call clay his favorite surface after clinching a stunning win over Andrey Rublev at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters, his sixth over a Top 10 player.

“Right now, I think it is!” laughed the unseeded 24-year-old after dethroning the defending champion, 6-4, 6-4. “Honestly, it’s the surface I feel most comfortable on because it gives me more time on my groundstrokes. My serve is just as effective here as it is on hard courts. I get as many free points, maybe just a little bit less, but I’m able to do more with my groundstrokes. I’m also comfortable moving on the surface, which is very important.”

Where countrymen like Nick Kyrgios have played their best tennis on grass, Popyrin, who won his second ATP title last year on clay in Umag, built his game on what Roland Garros calls the terre battue, noting the contrast with his “Aussie on clay” camera lens signature after handing Rublev his third straight loss.

“I think in the past, it wasn’t an Aussie’s favorite surface,” Popyrin told Prakash Amritraj at the Tennis Channel Live Desk, “but for me, I kind of grew up on it. I moved to Spain early on and it’s the surface I’m most comfortable on right now. I think that’s not very common for an Australian because we don’t have many clay courts down there and we don’t play many clay-court tournaments. I’m enjoying it on the clay, every moment of it.”

Popyrin is enjoying a second life in Monte Carlo after serving to stay in his first match against Corentin Moutet, avenging a Vienna defeat to Rublev from last fall, striking 25 winners and playing the consistent aggression envisioned by a coaching team led by former players Neville Godwin and Xavier Malisse.

“I think this is something we’ve been working on for the last year and a half,” said Popyrin, who was ranked at a career-high No. 38 in February. “I’ve known I have the quality to compete with these top guys and to be able to beat them. It’s not my first Top 10 win, so I’m confident when I go out there. It’s just a matter of keeping the focus, the energy, and the level. That’s something that was my problem in the past: I was able to keep that high level but I wasn’t able to give it consistently.”

As for Rublev, the No. 6 seed will be increasingly desperate for answers after falling to 1-3 since getting defaulted from the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships semifinals for swearing at a lines official. His lone victory came over Andy Murray at the BNP Paribas Open, and he has lost his last six sets played.

With a first clay-court Masters 1000 quarterfinal on the line, Popyrin will face another “Aussie on clay” after No. 11 seed Alex de Minaur rallied from a set down to score his first win over Dutch nemesis Tallon Griekspoor, 2-6, 6-2, 6-3. The pair have faced off twice on the court—splitting their two encounters, with Popryin winning their most recent in 2021—but have even stronger ties as part of the Australian Davis Cup team.

“We have an awesome group of guys and I think we all get along so well, it’s why we’ve made two consecutive Davis Cup finals. We’re such a tight-knit group that I honestly can’t pick just one. [De Minaur and Kokkinakis], I’ve known the most, so them two if I had to pick, but it’s really tough to do.”