By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Monday September 29, 2020

It’s a true rite of passage in men’s tennis—the comeback from two sets down. On Tuesday we saw it happen twice, for the first time, for two rising forces in men’s tennis at Roland Garros.

And it just so happens that they were the two finalists at Hamburg on Sunday.



Andrey Rublev powered back to defeat Sam Querrey, 6-7(5) 6-7(4) 7-5 6-4 6-3 to book a second-round clash with Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, while Stefanos Tsitsipas rallied from two sets down to topple Jaume Munar, 4-6 2-6 6-1 6-4 6-4 on Court Suzanne Lenglen.

The pair of victors had met on Sunday in the final in Hamburg with Rublev claiming his biggest career title, 6-4 3-6 7-5.

Today on Court Simonne Mathieu said it was nerves that choked him up during his match with Querrey, and he admitted that he wasn’t really able to shake free of the throughout the whole match.

“Since the first point of the match till the last match of the match I was completely frozen,” Rublev said. “I couldn't do one step, I could only hit, I was tight like I don't know. Not many times I was tight like this.”

Rublev said that the first-strike game of Querrey, which allows an opponent very little rhythm, also contributed to his nerves.

“He don't give you rhythm,” Rublev said. “He go for the shots. He have really great serve. As soon as he have chance he try to go full power to the side and go to the net. So in the end, you cannot, even if you start tight, he's not this kind of player who start to play rallies with you and maybe after one set or half set you start to feel better. He don't give you this.”

Tsitsipas turned around his match against Munar on the same court that he lost a heartbreaking round of 16 match against Stan Wawrinka last year.

“I think I ever played a match like this before,” said Tsitsipas. “The emotions and the nerves at the very beginning were not there, but with slight adjustments, I tried to find a way to win a different way. It wasn’t working out at all for me in the beginning, nothing was working and I don’t think I had a match like this before. Everything was just not responding, but I’m really proud of myself and really proud of the effort that I put, the amount of dedication.”

Tsitsipas moves on to face Pablo Cuevas in the second round.

“Playing a best-of-five can be very challenging and I’m really happy that I walk away from Suzanne Lenglen today with a W.”