Gold ground: Rublev wins 18th career title

Andrey Rublev proved that he is still an elite player on the ground. After the failure of the grass season, the 28-year-old Russian had a great week at the Swedish Bostad. During the ATP 250 tournament, Andrey won four difficult matches and took his first title in 2026 (the 18th of his career). Rublev, 28, is rebuilding his game under the guidance of compatriot Marat Safin and trying to reach a new level.

Fatigue and changes

As the first seed, Rublev began his performance in Sweden from the 1/8 finals. There, he beat the 138th racket of the world, Andrea Pellegrino, in three sets, breaking a series of three defeats in a row (it started at Roland Garros). In the quarterfinals, Andrey defeated Sebastian Baez, a clay specialist, to whom he had already lost at this tournament in 2022. In the semifinals, another player was waiting for him, for whom the ground is his favorite surface, Alejandro Tabilo.

Rublev had a great first set (the first serve helped out), staggered in the second, although he won back the break, but also made a double mistake on Alejandro's set, shouting at himself a lot. In the third, he could have finished everything at 3:5 and 15-40 on the Chilean's serve, but he closed the match on his own.

For Rublev, this victory was his 100th on clay (with 51 defeats). The Russian reached the 30th ATP finals in his career. Only the best players of two generations have accumulated the same amount: Daniil Medvedev, Alexander Zverev, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Yannick Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz.

The reigning tournament champion Luciano Darderi was heading towards the finals on a parallel course. The second seed beat Daniel Altmaier and Nuna Borges in two sets, and in the semifinals he spent almost three hours on court with Paraguayan Daniel Vallejo.

—Darderi is a great player,— TASS quoted Andrei as saying. — He's playing better and better with every tournament. It's definitely not going to be easy in the finals. Overall, I'm happy to be playing in the finals in Bostad again. This is especially important considering that my season is not going well. With Marat, I'm changing my behavior, my approach to training, and a lot of things in my game. And it takes time. As soon as I realized that I had reached the limit in my progress, I started working. The choice was simple: either to gradually fall in the ranking, or to change something.

Other conditions

Rublev has already won the Swedish tournament in 2023. Then he defeated Kasper Ruud in the final. The first set with the Norwegian turned out to be very stubborn and ended with Andrey's victory in the tiebreak, and in the second game the Russian managed to put the two-time finalist of Roland Garros behind the wheel. The match with Darderi followed a similar scenario. The opponents took their serves pretty confidently in the first set, but at the end Rublev stepped up and made the most important break in the 10th game. With the score at 30:15, Luciano made a double mistake, and in the next play he failed to make a forehand. That's how Andrey earned a set point, but he couldn't implement it (a length error).

However, the next two draws remained for the Russian. First he made the winners, and then he won a long shootout from the back line. Darderi was very upset by this situation. The Italian tore his T-shirt and angrily smashed his racket.

After that, Luciano was clearly not at ease, and Rublev took advantage of this. I took the first game to zero, and then I made a break. With the score at 30:40, Darderi made a double mistake. In the third game, the Russian had to win back a break point, but he still defended his serve (3-0). It was the decisive moment of the match. After that, Andrey did not let anyone doubt his advantage and very confidently served for the match.

I have the 18th title of my career. The first since February 2025 (when he won the tournament in Doha). Andrey had previously won the trophy on clay more than two years ago, when he managed to win the Masters in Madrid 2024.

"It was difficult because the conditions (compared to previous days) have completely changed," Andrei said in a championship interview on the court. — It was very cold and cloudy, and the ball became noticeably heavier. The court was very wet, so the situation was very different from the semifinals and quarterfinals, when it was sunny and windy. That's why I had to play more on the back line, it's a different kind of tennis. In the end, we both had chances, especially in the first set. It's just that I was a little more lucky at key moments, and I was able to take advantage of the opportunities. I want to pay tribute to my opponent, Luciano had a great week.

Rublev broke a series of five defeats from rivals from the top 20.

—Andrey spent the final, and indeed the entire tournament in Bostad, exceptionally focused, winning every match in the class," Alexey Selivanenko, a member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame committee, told Izvestia. — In the final, he only had one break in each set to beat Darderi, although Luciano is always great at this tournament.

On Monday, July 20, the Russian will add two positions and become the 14th racket of the world.