{"id":437076,"date":"2026-02-21T01:23:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T01:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/437076\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T01:23:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T01:23:08","slug":"really-proud-alcaraz-sees-off-rublev-fightback-to-move-into-doha-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/437076\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Really proud’ Alcaraz sees off Rublev fightback to move into Doha final"},"content":{"rendered":"

World number one Carlos Alcaraz continued his unbeaten run in 2026 as \u2060he beat defending champion Andrey Rublev 7-6(3) 6-4 on Friday to reach the Qatar Open final, \u200creaching the 12th final in his last 13 tournaments.<\/p>\n

Russian Rublev<\/a> fought \u200cback from 3-0 down to level the second \u200cset and then saved five match points, but the Spaniard \u200cultimately prevailed to win his 11th straight match \u200cof the season.<\/a><\/p>\n

“I know what I’m able to do every time that I step on court. For me it’s great. Obviously, \u200cthe way I’m approaching every match, \u2060I’m just really proud \u200cabout it,” said 22-year-old Alcaraz<\/a>, who has been a finalist at \u200bthe last four Grand Slams, winning three of them.<\/p>\n

“I’m trying to be better at that… \u200bit’s paying off. All the focus and attention. I’m just happy and proud about myself with how I’m \u2060getting better and \u200bgetting mature I guess.”<\/p>\n

A struggling Rublev made 14 unforced backhand errors in the first set, but outwitted Alcaraz with precise forehands that nicked the baseline as both players \u200cbroke the other twice each to go into a tiebreak.<\/p>\n

Alcaraz held his nerve to go 6-3 up in the tiebreak as a frustrated Rublev repeatedly smashed the racket on his left knee, breaking a string. Seven-time Grand Slam winner Alcaraz then pretended to slice but landed a forehand down the sideline to win the first set.<\/p>\n

Alcaraz broke Rublev twice to go 5-3 up \u200cin the second set and was serving for the \u200bmatch when the world number 14 saved three match \u200cpoints to break back.<\/p>\n

But Alcaraz pushed to break again for victory in the next game, and finally converted his sixth match point when Rublev’s backhand landed wide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"World number one Carlos Alcaraz continued his unbeaten run in 2026 as \u2060he beat defending champion Andrey Rublev…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437077,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-437076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}