Andrey Rublev scores 350th win of career with victory over Auger-Aliassime in Hamburg

It’s been a tricky few months for Andrey Rublev—after winning the ATP 500 event in Doha in February, he went 2-7 in his next seven tournaments, not winning back-to-back matches anywhere.

But the former No. 5 has come alive again at another ATP 500 event this week, in Hamburg, winning four matches in a row—the latest one being a 6-1, 6-4 victory over fellow former Top 10 player Felix Auger-Aliassime in the semifinals of the clay-court event.

And that victory over the Canadian on Friday was a special one: it was the milestone 350th tour-level win of his career.

Rublev, who was born in 1997, is the third man born in 1997 or later to hit that number, after Alexander Zverev and Stefanos Tsitsipas.

He’s the seventh man born since 1990 to do it.

MEN BORN IN 1990 OR LATER WITH 350+ CAREER WINS (tour-level):

• 488: Alexander Zverev [born in 1997]
• 473: Grigor Dimitrov [born in 1991]
• 397: Daniil Medvedev [born in 1996]
• 383: Milos Raonic [born in 1990]
• 362: Stefanos Tsitsipas [born in 1998]
• 353: David Goffin [born in 1990]
• 350: Andrey Rublev [born in 1997]

Rublev dominated his head-to-head against Auger-Aliassime coming into their semifinal match in Hamburg, 6-1, and he raced through the first set on Friday 6-1, too, in just 35 minutes.

Things tightened up a little bit from there, though, as Auger-Aliassime stayed on serve with Rublev for most of the second set—but Rublev broke one more time at 4-all and then served it out.

And he finished with some very clean numbers: 18 winners (half of which, nine, came from his forehand) to just 12 unforced errors.

"For sure it was my best match of the week. I'm happy that I'm playing better and better match by match," he said afterwards.

"I think it helped me, of course, that Felix played a really tough match yesterday against Muller, and they finished quite late, so I guess it also gave me a little bit of an advantage today.

"But I'm happy I was able to perform well and be in the final."

Rublev is into his 28th ATP final, going 17-10 in his previous 27, and it'll be his 11th ATP 500 final, going 6-4 in his previous 10.

Up next will be Italy's Flavio Cobolli, who rallied from 6-2, 3-1 down to defeat Tomas Martin Etcheverry in the other semifinal, 2-6, 7-5, 6-4.

Rublev and Cobolli will be playing each other for the first time.