Taylor Fritz has been playing well lately, but the American had a big problem on Wednesday evening: he was playing red-hot Russian Andrey Rublev.
The second seed continued his impressive stretch with a 6-3, 6-1 victory against Fritz to reach the quarter-finals of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.
“I’m really happy that I can win in straight sets, quite confidently. I know Taylor since [the] juniors and it’s always tough to play against him, because he has a huge serve and he’s playing really fast,” Rublev said. “The first set was not even rallies because everything was serve, winner or serve, mistake, so everything was so fast.
“In these conditions, it’s tough to find the rhythm. You don’t know what’s going to happen and it’s really not easy, but I’m happy that in the end I made it.”
Most Consecutive Wins At ATP 500 Events
| Player | Wins | Streak |
| Roger Federer | 28 | 2014 Dubai R1-2016 Halle QF (5 titles) |
| Andrey Rublev | 22 | 2020 Hamburg R1-Present (4 titles) |
| Andy Murray | 21 | 2016 Queen’s Club R1- 2017 Barcelona QF (4 titles) |
Rublev has now won 22 consecutive matches at ATP 500 events, moving into second place for the longest winning streak at this level since the category’s inception in 2009. The Russian has not lost at an ATP 500 tournament since Hamburg last year.
“I think it’s not about 500s, it just happens,” Rublev said. “I’m really happy with my performance. I’m really happy that I’m playing and showing good results and we’ll see if I can keep working this way.”
The World No. 8 saved six break points in one game in the second set and he ran away with the momentum from there, blasting away at every opportunity to triumph after 64 minutes. Rublev will next play in-form Hungarian Marton Fucsovics, who ousted Serbian Dusan Lajovic 6-1, 4-6, 6-4.
Rublev defeated Fucsovics in straight sets in the Rotterdam final earlier this year and he leads their ATP Head2Head series 2-1.