As yet another enormous opportunity rapidly slipped from his grasp in the US Open quarter-final against Frances Tiafoe last summer, a distraught Andrey Rublev slumped down in his chair and cried into his towel.
The match wasn’t even over, but Rublev was all too familiar with how these events normally end. Despite his considerable achievements, from being a permanent fixture inside the top 10, to 11 ATP titles at the time and an Olympic gold medal, his career, in his mind, was also defined by what had evaded him. Rublev had contested seven grand slam quarter-finals and two Masters 1000 finals before this spring, losing every single one.
