pa href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/andrey-rublev/re44/overview'Andrey Rublev/a is through to his first semi-final since he won the Madrid title in May after a comeback win against a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/fabian-marozsan/m0ci/overview'Fabian Marozsan/a Thursday at the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/umag/439/overview'Plava Laguna Croatia Open Umag/a. The top seed earned a 5-7, 6-3, 6-2 victory to set up a Friday showdown with fourth seed a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/francisco-cerundolo/c0au/overview'Francisco Cerundolo/a in what will be his 40th tour-level semi-final./p
p"I feel great," Rublev said of his accomplishment. "I was looking forward to that match because it was a great challenge for me. After the first set I was thinking that maybe today's not my day. But then somehow I changed my mentality and I started to say, 'No, just keep fighting and we'll see what's going to happen.' In the end I was able to play better and better to end up winning."/p
pRublev is seeking to win multiple titles at the same event for the first time in his career, with all 16 of his tour-level trophies having come in different locations. He is also bidding for his third title of 2024 after triumphs in Hong Kong and Madrid./p
blockquote class="twitter-tweet"
p lang="en" dir="ltr"Rublev races to the semi-finals ????️????????br /
br /
The win goes to a href="https://twitter.com/AndreyRublev97?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@AndreyRublev97/a over Marozsan 5-7 6-3 6-2a href="https://twitter.com/CroatiaOpenUmag?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@CroatiaOpenUmag/a | a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CroatiaOpenUmag?src=hashamp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"#CroatiaOpenUmag/a a href="https://t.co/zjVavmUPUg"pic.twitter.com/zjVavmUPUg/a/p
mdash; ATP Tour (@atptour) a href="https://twitter.com/atptour/status/1816556674292879394?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"July 25, 2024/a/blockquote
script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"/script
pBy reaching the semis, Rublev moved past a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/casper-ruud/rh16/overview'Casper Ruud/a to No. 8 in the PIF ATP Live Rankings. He can climb to within 70 points of World No. 7 a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/hubert-hurkacz/hb71/overview'Hubert Hurkacz/a by winning the title./p
pCerundolo advanced to his 10th tour-level semi-final with a 6-2, 2-6, 7-6(2) result against a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/lorenzo-sonego/su87/overview'Lorenzo Sonego/a. Neither player created a break chance in the final set, according to Infosys ATP Stats, but the fourth seed dominated the decisive tie-break./p
pAs the first Argentine semi-finalist in Umag since a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/guido-pella/pc11/overview'Guido Pella/a and a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/marco-trungelliti/ta29/overview'Marco Trungelliti/a in 2018, Cerundolo has equalled his best result of this season mdash; a semi-final showing in Rio de Janeiro. Cerundolo and Rublev have split two previous Lexus ATP Head2Head meetings, with Rublev winning a dramatic three-setter last year in the Bastad semis./p
p#NextGenATP Czech a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/jakub-mensik/m0ni/overview'Jakub Mensik/a also progressed to the semis on Thursday with a 6-0, 6-4 win against lucky loser Tseng Chun-Hsin. The fifth semi-finalist aged 18 or younger in Umag history mdash; and the first Czech to reach that stage since a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/jiri-novak/n254/overview'Jiri Novak/a in 2005 mdash; Mensik awaits second seed a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/lorenzo-musetti/m0ej/overview'Lorenzo Musetti/a or a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/dusan-lajovic/l987/overview'Dusan Lajovic/a in the last four./p
p[NEWSLETTER FORM]/p
