Andrey Rublev faces Marin Cilic in the third round of the 2022 Australian Open on Saturday, January 22nd 2022.
Will Marin Cilic show us that he still has the game to beat these top 10 guys, or will Andrey Rublev show us that he is ready to go toe to toe with another big hitter here?
Marin Cilic played a very good second round match against Norbert Gombos, beating him in 4 sets. Although it was a good match, it was tight at times, especially off of the second serve. Cilic was broken 2 times, when he should really be winning these matches quite easily early on to show some confidence and momentum to the rest of the draw. Can he be able to get anything going against a much tougher opponent?
Andrey Rublev had a walk in the park in his second round match, beating Ricardas Berankis in straight sets. Andrey will be very happy with his first serve as he was able to win 85% of points off of it, and he was very solid on the return game. Rublev loves these fast hard court conditions as his forehand is able to get further in the court faster and make his opponents have to play defensive right from the start of the match.
This is going to be the 6th meeting between both players, with Andrey having won 4 of their 5 encounters. Marin only beat Andrey the first time they met, but since then it has been a one way street. Andrey is a much better opponent and he can get more speed off of his groundstokes than Marin at the moment. I expect for Marin to rely on his serve a lot here, but if Rublev returns well, he should get through this quite easily.