MADRID, 13 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Australian Alexey Popyrin and American Jessica Pegula were crowned winners of the Masters 1000 tournaments in Montreal and WTA 1000 in Toronto on Monday, after beating Russian Andrey Rublev and American Amanda Anisimova in the final, respectively.
World number 23 Popyrin claimed the first major title of his career after defeating the number five seed in the tournament, Russian Andrey Rublev, 6-2, 6-4. Rublev was seeking his third Masters 1000 and was unable to cope with the potential of the Australian, who breaks a drought of more than 21 years without an Oceanian winning a Masters 1000, after Lleyton Hewitt did it in 2003.
The Australian could not have started his third ATP final better – all of them victorious – as he managed to get a break in the first game of the match, which allowed him to lead for the rest of the first set. In addition, with the score at 3-1, he managed to get a second break to take the first set with hardly any opposition from Rublev, who wasted four break points in this set.
The second set started with the same script as the first, as Popyrin was able to break his opponent’s serve in the first game. However, the Russian was able to recover the disadvantage in the sixth game and managed to make it 3-3 on the scoreboard, thus tying the match for the first time.
The Muscovite managed to get his serve in hand to take the lead for the first time, but his opponent responded by breaking his serve again to go 3-4 up and take a hard-fought victory based on his great ball speed that overwhelmed Rublev, and his 31 winning shots. The Australian did not waste the opportunity and closed out the match to sign the first major victory of his career against a Russian who was unable to achieve his third Masters 1000 after winning in Monte Carlo 2023 and Madrid 2024.
For her part, Jessica Pegula managed to defend her title at the WTA 1000 in Toronto after beating her compatriot Amanda Anisimova 6-3, 2-6, 6-1 in a match in which she was able to resist the ups and downs of her rival, who committed up to nine double faults in the match, and who barely won 56 percent of points with her first serve.
The match started in exactly the same way as the encounter between Popyrin and Rublev, with a break in the first set for Pegula, who managed to consolidate her advantage in the first set without giving up any break opportunities. With the score at 5-3 and Anisimova serving, the defending champion managed to break her rival’s serve to close out the first set 6-3.
In the second set, the world number 49 was able to react and hit back at the world number six to force the third final set where, however, her good form disappeared and she was crushed by her compatriot, who lifted her second title in 2024 after Berlin and after a somewhat irregular year in which she had not yet made it past the quarter-finals in a WTA 1000.