Wimbledon 2025: Carlos Alcaraz withstands early onslaught from Andrey Rublev to win in 4 sets
No. 2 men's seed Carlos Alcaraz withstood an early scare from No. 14 Andrey Rublev to continue his pursuit of a third consecutive Wimbledon title, winning in four sets on Sunday 7-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4.
Rublev challened Alcaraz from the start, running out to a 4-1 lead in the first set as the defending Wimbledon champion struggled to get into a rhythm. He had difficulty winning his serve while also committing several unforced errors.
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Alcaraz finally held serve to close within 4-2 and showed some emotion as he tried to fire himself up. Rublev then made an error at the net on an Alcaraz drop shot, giving him an opening to gain two points in the set. He went on to win 11 of the next 12 points.
Rublev appeared as if he might be running low on energy after a frenetic start and that allowed Alcaraz to get back into the set. He took a hard fall and lost his racket while reaching to return a serve, but wasn't injured. That almost seemed to be an answer to Rublev's early aggressiveness, doing everything he could to get back into the match and force a tiebreaker.
Carlos Alcaraz slipped and fell to the grass during the first set of his fourth-round match at Wimbledon with Andrey Rublev on July 06, 2025 in London, England. (Photo by)
(Clive Brunskill via Getty Images)
Despite his own fall in the same corner after the two switched sides, Rublev was undeterred and went ahead 3-2 in the tiebreaker. Alcaraz showed his range by going deep in the corner to return two shots, but hit his next one into the net to fall behind 6-5.
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And at that point, the crowd came to life, sensing that Rublev was about to win the first set. That feeling was affirmed when Alcaraz again went deep behind the baseline for a return, but hit it into the net to lose the tiebreaker, 7-5. Rublev had won four of his six tiebreaking sets during this Wimbledon tournament.
Yet anyone who thought Alcaraz might be shaken by losing that first set was quickly corrected. He took control with his serve in the second set and a forehand return seemed to surprise Rublev, perhaps affecting his early aggressiveness.
After Rublev held serve to tie the set at 2-2, Alcaraz mixed in different tactics with his rocket serves and forehands, slicing balls down the line and feathering drop shots at the net. That had Rublev moving all the court and curbed what was a successful aggressive approach.
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Tied at 3-3, Rublev double-faulted to allow Alcaraz to break serve. The Russian couldn't recover from there, frustrated that he couldn't win his serve as Alcaraz held to get the final two points and win the second set.
The two began the third set going back and forth, but Alcaraz arguably won the point of the match by sliding on the grass toward the corner to return a cross-court shot that darted just out of Rublev's reach for a 4-3 lead.
The crowd erupted at the amazing play from the two-time Wimbledon champion and Alcaraz held his finger to his ear, asking for more. From there, Rublev played like he knew the set was lost and ready to start fresh.
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Perhaps the difference in the match was that Rublev couldn't raise his play to another level when he had Alcaraz playing catch-up. Contrarily, Alcaraz seemed to get better as the match wore on, reaching to find an extra boost when he needed it.
Rublev kept attempting to win his serve, aiming toward the lines to get Alcaraz chasing. But Alcaraz either got to the shots that he wasn't earlier in the match or Rublev wasn't quite as precise as when he started.
The fourth set began with Alcaraz getting two aces, but Rublev didn't move further back to try and adjust to that serve. That may have been another difference as Alcaraz changed his approach and mixed up his shots as the match progressed. Those adjustments helped him recover from Rublev's early onslaught.
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If there was one adjustment Rublev appeared to make, it was with his mental and emotional approach. During breaks in play, he looked like he was trying to calm down and not lose his composure as Alcaraz took control. Under those circumstances, Rublev wasn't just battling his opponent but himself as well.
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He has joined Chelsea at 23 with more than 200 career appearances to his name — a markedly different career trajectory to some of those who have gone straight to the biggest clubs and missed an important stage of their development. Another counterpoint is Fluminense forward Jhon Arias, who has been one of the outstanding performers at this Club World Cup but, at 27, is a relatively late bloomer in his native Colombia and might find it is too late to secure a move to a big European club even if he wishes to. 'The big European clubs don't want to sign the best players in South America anymore,' Vickery says. 'They're not looking at the likes of Jhon Arias. They want the best prospects, not the best players. They want to get them in their club or in their structure now, when they're young — rather than letting Benfica, Porto, Brighton or whoever sign them and then ending up paying £60m for them in a couple of years' time.' Advertisement There is a certain business logic to that; from a cynical perspective, if a £10m investment fails to live up to expectations, the financial downside for the buying club is relatively small — and in many cases, he will be sold to a club lower down the food chain. That risk is reduced further if, for example, a club is able to sell to another club in the same ownership group, as with Manchester City selling Kayky to Bahia or Chelsea selling to Strasbourg after the Portugal Under-21 international Diego Moreira had made a solitary Carabao Cup appearance for the club. But inevitably, there can be collateral damage to some of these players' careers. Some of them might be inclined to look at what Flamengo, Palmeiras and Fluminense have done at this Club World Cup and wonder whether their careers would have been better served by staying in Brazil a little longer — even if their bank balances might not. 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