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Russia’s Rublev roams into ATP Hamburg tennis tournament’s semifinals

The Russian routed Spain’s Roberto Bautista Agut in their quarterfinals clash on Friday

MOSCOW, September 25. /TASS/. Russian tennis player Andrey Rublev reached the semifinals round of the 2020 ATP (the Association of Tennis Professionals) tournament in Hamburg after ousting Spain’s Roberto Bautista Agut in their quarterfinals clash on the clay court on Friday.

It took Rublev, who is currently rated 14th in the ATP Rankings list, one hour and 31 minutes to defeat his Spanish opponent (ranked by ATP as World’s No. 11) with the straight sets win of 6-2; 7-5.

The 22-year-old Russian is now set to face in the semifinals of the tournament in Hamburg, which has 1.2 million euros (almost $1.4 million) in prize money up for grabs, the winner of the quarterfinals match between Ugo Humbert of France and Norway’s Casper Ruud.

French tennis player Humbert, who is ranked 41st in the ATP Rankings list, stunned on Wednesday Russian tennis star Daniil Medvedev in the opening round of the ATP Hamburg tournament with straight sets win of 6-4; 6-3.

According to the official website of the tournament’s organizers, "The Hamburg European Open welcomes 32 top singles players and 16 doubles teams to the summer clay-court event as one of the 13 ATP Tour 500 stops. The tournament is held in the heart of Hamburg at the Rothenbaum Tennis Center, which features a retractable roof stadium."

The tennis tournament in Hamburg was intended to be held earlier in the year but was rescheduled for September 21-27 due to the global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Coronavirus pandemic

In late December 2019, Chinese officials informed the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia.

On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 32,421,800 people have been infected worldwide and more than 987,800 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 23,934,430 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.