Andrey Rublev wins Doha title over Jack Draper

Sometimes you just to have stop worrying. Stop strategizing. Stop thinking too much. Stop playing it safe. Stop weighing the percentages. That’s the stage Andrey Rublev had reached as he began the third set of his final with Jack Draper in Doha on Saturday.

“I let go of everything,” the Russian said.

By that point, Rublev was too tired, and too frustrated, to do much else.

Forty-eight hours earlier, he had beaten Alex De Minaur 10-8 in a third-set tiebreaker, on his eighth match point. Twenty-four hours after that, he had beaten Felix Auger-Aliassime, 7-5 in a third-set tiebreaker, in a match that ended with a flurry of full-throttle rallies.

Against Draper, Rublev had won the first set and was two points from what might have been a match-ending break of serve late in the second set. But then he had watched—and screamed, and slammed his racquet—as Draper suddenly upped his pace, took control of the points, and won the final three games to level the match at a set each.

But instead of letting his rage overwhelm him, as he has many times in the past, Rublev put it in the rear-view mirror, along with everything else. He broke Draper’s serve with a winning backhand return; the shot, it turned out, also broke the Brit’s spirit. Draper had also won his share of three-setters this week, but this turned out to a set too far for him.

Rublev held for 3-0, broke for 0-40 with another backhand return, and sprinted to the finish line for a 7-5, 5-7, 6-1 win.

“Both of us were really tired,” Rublev said. “Somehow, I don’t know, we were able to play good level.”

“I started to play much better [in the third set], started to play free….As soon as I was frustrated, I was able to get over it.”

This was Rublev’s 17th career title, and marked the first time he had won an event twice. Maybe more important, it put an end to a run of subpar results that extended back to last summer. He went 0-3 at the ATP Finals in 2024, and lost in the first round to Joao Fonseca at the Australian Open. At 27, with many miles on his tires, and a ranking that was no longer going higher, we might have started to wonder if Rublev’s peak was behind him.

Instead, he has righted the ship with three gritty wins, over three quality opponents, in three days. This is his sixth title at a 500, which is the level where he has felt most comfortable. He has two wins at 1000s, and has yet to reach a Grand Slam semifinal.

Once upon a time, after a victory like this, I might have wondered if it was a sign of bigger things to come for Rublev. Is that a question that’s still worth asking of a 27-year-old, who has been on tour for a decade, and whose game has hardly changed during that time?

What we might do, instead of hoping for more, is appreciate Rublev for what he is. He’s a glue guy, someone who brings his tour-mates together and is friendly with everyone. You could see it in the respectful and sincerely encouraging comments that Rublev and Draper gave to each other in their post-match speeches. Despite his maniacal on-court outbursts, the Russian makes the tour feel a little less cut-throat, and a little more like a brotherhood.

Gaël Monfils served a similar role with the previous generation of ATP players, but Rublev has fulfilled more of his potential than the Frenchman. While he’s 5-14 against two of his best friends on tour, Daniil Medvedev and Alexander Zverev, Rublev’s 17 titles and perennial Top 10 status show that he doesn’t let his will to brotherhood interfere too much with his will to win.

“I hope it’s not my best week to come,” Rublev said.

Maybe it’s too late to hope he can win the sport’s biggest events, but for a guy like him, wins like this are worth celebrating in themselves.