Andrey Rublev labored himself into such a fury during a 7-5, 6-2 loss to Carlos Alcaraz on the ATP Finals that he repeatedly hit himself with his racquet and ended up leaving his left knee bloodied.

Rublev had already slammed his racquet to the bottom during the opening recreation of the second set in Wednesday’s round-robin match.

Then, when the Russian missed a shot to hand Alcaraz a break, he began beating himself as he walked to his chair and had to use a towel to wipe the blood off.

Blood continued to trickle down Rublev’s leg as he performed on and he finally referred to as a coach for therapy.

“It’s OK,” Rublev shrugged afterwards.

“I get disappointed and couldn’t manage.”

The second-ranked Alcaraz, a 20-year-old Spaniard who’s already a two-time grand slam champion, ended an uncharacteristic three-match shedding streak following defeats to Grigor Dimitrov in Shanghai, Roman Safiullin in Paris and Alexander Zverev in his debut match in Turin.

While Rublev was nearly eradicated after shedding each of his opening matches, Alcaraz boosted his possibilities of advancing from the spherical robin stage on the season-ending occasion for the yr’s high eight gamers.

Alcaraz will subsequent face Daniil Medvedev, who secured his spot within the semi-finals with a 7-6 (9-7), 6-4 win over Zverev.

“The key against Medvedev is to play a perfect match — tactically,” Alcaraz mentioned.

Jannik Sinner leads the inexperienced group with two wins following his victory over Novak Djokovic on Tuesday, with the highest two finishers in every four-man group advancing to the semi-finals.

The Alcaraz-Rublev match had proved a detailed affair within the opening set till the Spaniard broke for a 6-5 lead.

Then Rublev was left fuming because the opening level of the following recreation had to be replayed after his shot was referred to as broad. The name was overturned on assessment after it was proven that the shot had landed on the road.

Rublev referred to as it an “unlucky call.”

“But it’s part of the sport,” he mentioned.

“It happens every match. Just happened that it was an important point.”

In the following recreation, Rublev bloodied himself.

As the second set wore on, Alcaraz started producing one spotlight after one other. Like when he hit a forehand cross-court passing shot as he was within the means of falling down, and likewise when he pulled off a backhand winner down the road from far off courtroom on the run a few video games later.

In the night time conflict, Medvedev saved two set factors within the opening set as Zverev was shaky on the massive factors on the finish of each units.

“Very tough match mentally. I’m happy that I was able to regroup,” Medvedev mentioned.

“The ending of both sets was very tight.”

Medvedev, the 2020 champion, improved to 11-7 in his profession in opposition to Zverev and has now gained 5 of their six conferences this yr.

AP