Flavio Cobolli, Andrey Rublev set for Hamburg Open final

Flavio Cobolli came from a set down Friday to defeat Tomas Martin Etcheverry 2-6, 7-5, 6-4 and reach the Hamburg Open final, where he will face Andrey Rublev.

Cobolli found himself trailing 3-1 in the second set but battled back to reach his second final of the season.

Rublev, a winner in Hamburg in 2020 and finalist in 2019, eased past Canada’s Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-1, 6-4 and will now bid for his second title this year after winning the Qatar Open.

Etcheverry, a clay-court specialist, earned his first break points in the sixth game and converted the third opportunity to go up 4-2.

He then broke Cobolli, ranked 35th in the world, when the Italian — who had 18 unforced errors at that stage, three times as many as his opponent — double-faulted on Etcheverry’s third set point.

Etcheverry initially kept up the pressure, hitting the ball deep, with one shot landing flat on the baseline to break his opponent again and take a 3-1 lead early in the second set.

Cobolli, however, was not done, cutting down his error count and pinning Etcheverry to the baseline with longer rallies.

He twice broke the world No. 55 to go up 6-5 and held serve to grab the second set.

Both players held serve in the deciding set until Cobolli broke for 5-4 and then converted his first match point.

The main draw of the French Open gets underway Sunday at Roland-Garros, where Rublev is seeded 17th.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Source: espn.com