Players can find hot streaks on tour through all kinds of ways. A new coach can spur them to success, or the home fans can will them to a title.
Other times, the reasons for their victories remain unclear. The successful players stand as mystified as their fans.
That's not the case for Andrey Rublev. The 19-year-old Russian, who's into the third round of a Grand Slam for the first time at the US Open, knows when his game started to change and why.
Seventeen months ago, in April 2016, he joined fellow Russian Karen Khachanov at the 4 Slam Tennis Academy in Barcelona, Spain, and started to train with coaches Fernando Vicente and Galo Blanco. Rublev said he worked hard before moving his base to Barcelona, but not as hard as he needed to if he wanted to thrive at Grand Slams and on the ATP World Tour.
“When I was junior, I was working hard. I was not doing some bad things or something. It's just this work was not for pro. ... Now last year I changed everything completely. I changed the team completely. In that moment starts the real work,” Rublev said after his second-round win against Grigor Dimitrov in New York. “Now I improve in this year. I improve much more than in all my tennis career.”
The Russian's better play has been on display all season. He started the year by winning his first Grand Slam match at the Australian Open, beating Taiwanese veteran Yen-Hsun Lu.
More Grand Slam success came his way in May, when Rublev returned to Roland Garros, the site of his junior Grand Slam title. The former junior world No. 1 captured the Paris crown in 2014, becoming the first Russian to win the junior event since Vladimir Korotkov in 1966.
This year, Rublev qualified at Roland Garros for the first time and battled clay-court stalwart Diego Schwartzman for five sets before falling 9-7 in the fifth. Two months later, Rublev claimed his first ATP World Tour title on the clay in Umag, Croatia.
“It’s amazing. I have no words to explain it,” Rublev told ATPWorldTour.com.
His upward trajectory has continued this week in Flushing Meadows, where Rublev has done his part to wreak havoc on the men's draw. The 6-foot-2 right-hander stunned Dimitrov, who reached the fourth round last year and was a bona fide title contender. The 26-year-old Bulgarian had sprinted through the US Open Series event in Cincinnati last month, winning 10 consecutive sets and beating Aussie Nick Kyrgios in the final for his first Masters 1000 title.
Dimitrov had also rolled through his Flushing opener, dropping only seven games against Czech qualifier Vaclav Safranek. It looked as if he would cruise past Rublev as well. Dimitrov led 5-2, but Rublev recovered and didn't let up against the No. 7 seed, who led by a break in both the first and second sets.
“I was just thinking to try to focus, just to try to fight, no matter even if I am losing with a break," Rublev said. "And in the end, I was a little bit lucky. I make a good few returns. I hit maybe a few points close to the line. In the end I break."
He attacked Dimitrov, a two-time Grand Slam semifinalist, throughout the two-hour and 31-minute match, winning 13 of his 17 net points and finishing with 36 winners.
“I think my style of the game is just to play aggressive, to try to play my rhythm because I have quite, I think in my opinion, quite [good] rhythm," Rublev said. "I can play, compete with many good guys."
The first-time third-rounder could very well be a first-time round-of-16 player come Saturday. He faces Bosnian Damir Dzumhur, who also will be playing in the third round of the US Open for the first time.
“I hope,” Rublev said, “that I'm doing better and better.”
