NextGen Finals: Fantastic Munar serves up Tiafoe, Rublev preserves chance

The group phase at the ATP NextGen Finals in Milan is entering its decisive phase. Jaume Munar surprisingly beat Frances Tiafoe in his third group match, Andrey Rublev also won in three sets.

Rafael Nadal’s protégé Jaume Munar could not have started the match better against the favorite American Frances Tiafoe. Munar opened the first set twelve times, scored the point twelve times and won the set 4-1 after only 14 minutes.

In the second set, the 21-year-old Spaniard also lost only one point on his own serve, literally ditched Tiafoe and performed magic in front of the Italian audience. Set two went 7:3 in the tiebreak to Munar. In set three, the 20-year-old had no chance for the other side and Munar converted his first match point to 4-1, 4-3 (3) and 4-1.

With the surprise victory Munar kept the chance to reach the semi-finals. This depended on the performance of the Pole Hubert Hurkacz, who would have to win against the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas in the evening to still have the chance of the next round.

In the second match on Thursday, last year’s finalist Andrey Rublev met local hero Liam Caruana and the Russian lived up to his role as favourite and thus also kept his chance to reach the semi-finals.

The 21-year-old from Moscow had to fight a bit in the opening set and had to cross the tiebreak. This developed into a true thriller, which Rublev won 9:7. Set two ran with a clear 4:1 completely in the direction of the favorite.

Also in the third round Rublev had everything under control and with a 4:2 victory made the second victory in the third game perfect. Whether the 21-year-old reaches the semi-finals depends on the match between the table leader Alex de Minaur and the American Taylor Fritz. If de Minaur won, Rublev would finish second in the group stage and move into the final four.