Alexander Bublik to “AI generated” Jannik Sinner after rout: “I’m not bad. But what the f—?”

NEW YORK—“He’s like an AI-generated player,” Alexander Bublik said of his opponent, Jannik Sinner, as he did his pre-match interview with ESPN inside Arthur Ashe Stadium.

Had Bublik seen his own future? Can he speak things into being? Sinner soon proved that his words weren’t all that much of an exaggeration. Over the next 81 minutes, the top seed and ATP No. 1 played with a borderline-inhuman blend of force and precision.

The onslaught began in the opening game. Bublik came into the match having held serve 55 straight times; just returning the ball had been an achievement for his opponents. The 28-year-old had won two titles and 11 straight matches since Wimbledon, and he had beaten Sinner in their last meeting, in June. Two nights earlier, he had knocked out No. 14 seed Tommy Paul on this court.

If that had Bublik riding high with confidence, Sinner took it all away in the blink of an eye. Bublik made six first serves in the opening game, and Sinner returned them all. By the time he was down break point, Bublik already looked rattled. When he double faulted, his run of service holds came to an immediate end.

With each passing game in the first set, Bublik lost a little more belief, and a little more of his will to try to seriously compete with Sinner. He threw a half-hearted drop shot into the net to go down 0-4. Two games later, at 1-5, he tried two underhand serves in a row and double faulted. At set point, he served up another half-hearted dropper and watched as Sinner knocked it off for an easy winner.

The next two sets went much like the first. In the second, Bublik double faulted twice and was broken in his opening service game. In the third, he was broken in his first service game yet again, when Sinner sent a forehand pass by him. Sinner would hit two more running passes, each more perfectly measured than the last, to go up 4-0.

“I broke him very early in every set, which gave me the confidence to serve a little better,” said Sinner, who faced just one break point and won 81 percent of his first-serve points.

“So much energy here,” he said of Ashe, where he was making his night debut this year.

While Sinner was energized, Bublik was flat, and he only flatlined further as the night went on. Normally something close to a serve-bot, he hit just two aces and committed 13 double faults. He won only 19 percent of points on his second serve, and hit 13 winners against 31 errors.

Bublik, smiling at his own futility, managed to treat the packed house to a few reflex return winners down the stretch. The fans roared in hope, but their cheers only served to show how much more they wanted from this match, and how little they got. In the end, Bublik managed just three breadsticks, in a 6-1, 6-1, 6-1 defeat.

When they shook hands, a still-smiling Bublik told Sinner, “I’m not bad. But what the f—-?”

Later, on Instagram, he put up a two-letter post:

AI

Maybe he had been right all along.