In March, Andrey Rublev and Márton Fucsovics played three times. The first match was close, a 7-6 (4), 6-4 win for Rublev in the Rotterdam final. Even the opening set of their next contest was close — 7-5 for Rublev in the Dubai quarterfinals. But the Russian won the second set of that match 6-2, then demolished Fucsovics for the loss of just three games in Miami. Somewhere between the start of their Dubai clash and the end of the Miami massacre, it became clear that Rublev had a solid edge in the rivalry.
Meeting three times in a single month is uncommon, even for the very best players. So when Fucsovics kept running into Rublev — fighting to stay close and maintaining positive energy only to keep losing to a better player — you probably naturally started to feel a bit bad for him. As Rublev played a perfect game, breaking Fucsovics to love to polish off their match in Miami, Rublev himself may have started to as well. He was unable to prevent a massive smile from breaking out across his face as he walked to net for the handshake, as if to say Sorry you had to be on the receiving end of one of my best days, buddy, but that sure was fun.
After the second Rublev win in 2021, Fucsovics joked that he wanted to stop playing the Russian so often as he headed off the court. It was funny. But after Miami, it seemed more difficult for Fucsovics to make light of the situation. Fucsovics was seeded 29th in Miami and had been playing solid tennis all year (including a win over Stan Wawrinka at the Australian Open from match point down), but simply couldn’t beat Rublev. Possibly even worse, Rublev was winning 500 titles, but nothing larger. He’d twice been beaten soundly by Daniil Medvedev in major quarterfinals and would presumably lose even more comfortably to world number one Djokovic, putting Fucsovics several steps away from the more meaningful titles on tour.
Most on tour don’t win these titles and have the mental durability to stay on tour anyway, but consistent losses to the same player must make one think of where they sit on the food chain. After Miami, Fucsovics had a substandard clay season, failing to score more than one win at Monte-Carlo, Madrid, Rome, or Roland-Garros. He could hardly be blamed if he had a mental lapse — where does the path lead after one player is seemingly always there to stop you, forcing you to confront the thought that your game may just be too far away from the highest level?
Instead of wilting, Fucsovics went to Stuttgart to prepare for Wimbledon. Ugo Humbert thrashed him in the first round. The Hungarian then went to Eastbourne, fighting past Aljaž Bedene in a third-set tiebreak, before falling to Soonwoo Kwon. But then London began to call.
Down a set to rising star Jannik Sinner in the first round, Fucsovics dug in and exploited the Italian’s often shaky serve. He had broken nine times by the end of the four-set win. After his second-round opponent retired mid-match, Fucsovics toppled ninth seed Diego Schwartzman, again in four sets. The reward for the Hungarian’s run? A rematch with his 2021 tormentor, Andrey Rublev.
Rublev has less experience on grass than on hard or clay courts, but matchup demons are matchup demons. Fucsovics managed to win the first set, but Rublev wrestled away the second and third. A two-sets-to-one deficit is hardly ever successfully dealt with. Despite this, Fucsovics again willed himself not to fold. He somehow won nine consecutive games, making his rival (yes, that term was becoming more and more apt for the matchup) experience something similar to what Fucsovics had endured in Miami.
Rublev made Fucsovics earn the victory, making a last push in the final game of the match, but the Hungarian saved a break point by capping a long rally with a sweeping forehand winner. Two points later, he had at last turned the tables on Rublev. He was no longer the one feeling the sting of a loss; he had ascended while forcing his rival backwards.
Tennis is cruel, not just in its brutal doses of pain after a loss, but in the relentless way it hurls difficult opponents at its players. Márton Fucsovics now has to play Novak Djokovic, a 19-time major champion and the world number one. Despite his perseverance, Fucsovics will not win this quarterfinal — it takes a nearly indescribable amount of game and willingness to suffer to beat Djokovic in a best-of-five tennis match — but for now, that isn’t the point.
That’s because while tennis is an unforgiving employer, its demanding nature can sometimes pull mind-boggling levels of endurance — both physical and mental — from players, forcing them to scour the inner reaches of their will in order to win the next point, the next match, the next tournament.
When players are up to tennis’s imposing challenge, we get epic tales like Fucsovics overcoming Rublev to make the quarterfinals of Wimbledon.