It is the semi-final on Friday in Hamburg, where the other seeds Andrey Rublev and Felix Auger-Aliassime will fight for a place in the championship match. An insufficient confrontation associates Flavio Cobolli against Tomas Martin Etcheverry.
(6) Felix Auger-Aliassime vs (3) Andrey Rublev
During other years, you would never find Rublev and Auger-Aliassime who were moving the week before a big slam. Now, however, they will collide in the semi-finals of the Hamburg Open with the start of Roland Garros which is looming only three days. The two guys should be extremely motivated at the end of the business of this ATP 500 tournament because they need points in the worst way. Rublev is down to the 17th row of the world, while Auger-Aliassime barely hung a seed from France open to n ° 30.
Rublev seems to be back on the right track with victories on Damir Dzumhur, Justin Engel and Luciano Darderi. Auger-Aliassime obtained his place in the last four by beating Daniel Altmaier, Giovanni Mpeshi Perricard and Alexandre Muller. The first two games of Canada were routine, but he needed two hours and 58 minutes to exceed Muller 7-6 (4), 6-7 (6), 6-3 Thursday evening. This is a match that has strongly favored Rublev. The Russian has a 6-1 file in seven previous meetings, including 2-0 on Clay after having triumphed 4-6, 7-5, 7-5 in the final of Madrid 2024. The stakes in the Hamburg semi-final are not as high, but-with Auger-Aliassime probably somewhat tired-the result will probably be the same.
Pick: Rublev in 3
Tomas Martin Etcheverry against Flavio Cobolli
Cobolli and Etcheverry will be faced for the fifth time in their careers on Friday. Surprisingly, Etcheverry won her four previous games, including two on Clay. However, they only clashed once since 2022 and once on the main tour. In the first round of the Australian Open this year, Etcheverry marked a 6-7 victory (8), 6-3, 7-5, 6-1.
Four months later, Cobolli overthrew his season. The classified Italian of the 35th was almost hopeless for three months (his backhand against Etcheverry was part of a sequence of seven consecutive defeats), but his swing on Clay-Court presents a title in Bucharest, a third round in Madrid and victories of Hamburg on Agut de Vitaliy Sachko, Alejandro Davidovich Fokina and Robert Bautista. As for Etcheverry, it is its best result of the year. The classified Argentinian of the 55th was 9-14 years before this week, but made the will to defeat Francisco Comeana, Camilo Ugo Carabelli and Jiri Lehecka. This is a uniform match on paper apart from the story of the head to head, so it has the impression that it is time for Cobolli to overcome the bump.
Pick: Cobolli in 3
