Both bidding to win their first ATP Tour titles of the season, British number one Jack Draper and former champion Andrey Rublev collide in what promises to be an explosive Qatar Open on Saturday.
Draper flexed his comeback muscles yet again to defeat Jiri Lehecka in the semi-finals, while Rublev advanced to his third Doha final with his own three-set success over Felix Auger-Aliassime.
Match preview
A month away from the game was just what the doctor ordered for Draper, whose post-Australian Open break may have been enforced due to yet another injury problem, but the world number 16 is back flaunting his hard-court prowess in Qatar.
The going has unsurprisingly got tougher for Draper since besting Alexei Popyrin and Christopher O'Connell in two sets during his opening two matches, but after coming from a set down to defeat Matteo Berrettini in the quarters, he repeated his fightback trick on Friday evening.
Critically coming up trumps in a second-set tie-breaker, Draper took two hours and 22 minutes to claim a 3-6 7-6[2] 6-3 win over Carlos Alcaraz's conqueror Lehecka, whom he slammed 14 aces past while winning 88% of his first-serve points.
While the British number one may be miffed at failing to save either break point that Lehecka brought up, he fashioned 10 of his own - taking three of them - to make his first final of the 2025 season, where a third ATP Tour title will be on the line.
The eighth seed comes into Saturday's showpiece with a 50% success rate from four previous top-level finals, but those two triumphs have come in his last two championship matches in Stuttgart and Vienna, last finishing as runner-up to none other than Lehecka in Adelaide 13 months ago.
Draper's imminent foe Rublev may be unable to banish his Grand Slam quarter-finals demons no matter how hard he tries - making the last eight of 10 previous major tournaments and losing all of them - but there is something about Doha that often brings out the best in the Russian.
Runner-up to Gael Monfils in the 2018 tournament before defeating Corentin Moutet in the final two years later, the world number 10 is now competing in his third Qatar final, which he reached courtesy of an eerily similar set of results to Draper.
Also coming through his first two ties with Alexander Bublik and Nuno Borges in straight sets, Rublev was taken to the distance by Alex de Minaur and most recently Auger-Aliassime, being pegged back in the second set before holding his tie-breaker nerve on both occasions.
An epic semi-final encounter with Auger-Aliassime ended 7-5 4-6 7-6[5] in favour of Rublev, who survived a barrage of aces from the Canadian - 21 to be exact - and let his opponent orchestrate his own downfall with some fatal unforced errors in the final tie-breaker before taking his fourth match point.
Now just the ninth man to reach 10 ATP 500 finals - five of which he has won - the mercurial 27-year-old will win his 17th ATP Tour singles title if he can navigate his way past a firing-on-all-cylinders Draper, a task much easier said than done.
Tournament so far
Jack Draper:
First round: vs. Alexei Popyrin 6-2 7-6[4]
Second round: vs. Christopher O'Connell 6-2 6-1
Quarter-final: vs. Matteo Berrettini 4-6 6-4 6-3
Semi-final: vs. Jiri Lehecka 3-6 7-6[2] 6-3
Andrey Rublev:
First round: vs. Alexander Bublik 6-3 6-4
Second round: vs. Nuno Borges 6-3 6-4
Quarter-final: vs. Alex de Minaur 6-1 3-6 7-6[8]
Semi-final: vs. Felix Auger-Aliassime 7-5 4-6 7-6[5]
Head To Head
US Open (2023) - Fourth Round: Rublev wins 6-3 3-6 6-3 6-4
Citi Open (2022) - Second Round: Rublev wins 6-4 6-2
Madrid Open (2022) - Second Round: Rublev wins 2-6 6-4 7-5
History certainly favours the Russian heading into Saturday's Championship contest, as Rublev and Draper have faced off three times at the top level, and the former has triumphed in all of them.
Draper actually took the first set in their maiden meeting in Madrid three years ago, only to succumb to defeat in three, before Rublev made lighter work of him in Washington later in the 2022 season.
Most recently, Draper was denied a US Open quarter-final place by Rublev in 2023, losing in four to the 16-time ATP Tour champion despite saving 13 of the 17 break points that his Russian foe fashioned.
We say: Rublev to win in three sets
As exceptional as Draper is behind his own serve, blasting ace after ace past Rublev is not a surefire way to beat the Russian, as evidenced by their US Open battle and Auger-Aliassime's semi-final defeat.
Saturday's final is sure to be the closest head-to-head between the two trophy hopefuls yet, especially given Rublev's tendency to let match points slip from his grasp this week, but the more experienced fifth seed just edges this vote for us.
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