Tennis: Popyrin stuns Rublev to clinch Montreal Masters title

Montreal, Aug 13 (IANS) Australian Alexei Popyrin stunned World No. 6 Andrey Rublev in the Montreal final on the back of 18 forehand winners to clinch the ATP Masters 1000 title.

The 25-year-old Australian broke Rublev to love in the opening game of the match and never looked back as he charged to a 6-2, 6-4 win late in Monday night.

He claimed three Top 10 wins and snapped the eight-match winning streak of Washington champion Sebastian Korda en route to the title. He also took down World No. 14 Ben Shelton in the second round.

Surging to a career-high No. 23 in the ATP Rankings after reprising his win over Rublev in this year’s Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters, Popyrin saved all four break points he faced in the first set. In the second set he showed composure after dropping serve for 3-all to immediately break Rublev by dancing around a second serve and thundering two huge forehands, ATP reports.

By improving to 2-1 in his ATP head-to-head series with Rublev, Popyrin maintained his perfect record in ATP Tour finals, adding to the trophies he won in Singapore in 2021 and Umag in 2023.

Popyrin saved three match points to upset World No. 10 Grigor Dimitrov in the third round. He then defeated No. 6 Hubert Hurkacz in the quarter-finals before upending Korda in the semi-finals. He is the second-lowest-ranked champion in tournament history, behind only Sweden’s Mikael Pernfors, who was No. 95 when he won in 1993, according to ATP stats.

He is the first player to record five Top 20 wins at an event since Novak Djokovic at the 2022 ATP Finals, and first to do so since Holger Rune’s run to the 2022 Paris Masters title.

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