Ten losses to the top 20, then this
Some wins move you to the next round. Others rearrange a career. On the Estoril clay on Friday, Luca Van Assche managed the second kind. Beating Andrey Rublev was not just a result, it was a message. The 22-year-old landed the finest win of his life so far, seeing off the world No. 14 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 after two hours and 15 minutes of graft. It carries him into a maiden ATP semi-final, and a meeting with fellow Frenchman Hugo Gaston.
Van Assche knocks out the top seed 😵
He defeats Rublev 3-6 6-3 6-4 to advance to his first ATP semi-final!#EstorilOpen pic.twitter.com/BOjx4DC1n4
— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) July 24, 2026
Why this one runs deeper than a scoreline
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French tennis is guaranteed a man in the Estoril final now, whatever follows. Nice in itself. For Van Assche, though, the meaning goes further.
Until this week in Portugal, the world No. 78 had never reached an ATP semi-final. Worse, he had lost all 10 of his previous matches against top-20 players. That streak is history.
Rublev is one of the fiercest ball-strikers going. Van Assche never blinked. Not a set down, not while the Russian ran the rallies. Where others crumble, the Frenchman held his shape and backed his moment to arrive.
An arm-wrestle settled by patience
The first set laid it all out. Two men swinging freely, a breathless opener stuffed with break points. Fifteen of them. One taken. Rublev pounced at 3-2 and served it out.
The scoreline flattered the Russian. Van Assche was already a nuisance, his return dragging Rublev into trouble game after game, each hold a scrap.
Then it broke.
Through the second set the Frenchman kept knocking. Nine break chances slipped by, most snuffed out by Rublev’s first serve. The tenth stuck. By grinding, chasing everything and stretching the rallies past comfort, Van Assche got his reward and shut the set down with authority.
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Calm while Rublev came apart
The third set proved it was no accident.
Van Assche crept into control of the exchanges. That two-handed backhand was the ideal counter to Rublev’s brute hitting, and his reading of the pattern let him meet every surge of pace. Minute by minute, he owned the tempo.
An early break, gifted by a horrible Rublev miss at the net, tilted it. The Russian’s head went. The glares came, the gestures too, and still no answer to the movement in front of him.
One job left: serve it out.
The nerves returned as he stepped up. Two forehand errors handed Rublev a break point, the kind of moment where a match can slip away. Van Assche’s reply was the shot of the day, a fearless cross-court backhand winner. Two points later, two more Russian mistakes, done.
Now an all-French tie for the final
This could be the hinge of Van Assche’s career. Toppling a player of Rublev’s rank, after going the distance in every earlier round, speaks to both the sharper game and the harder mind.
Saturday brings Gaston and a different sort of test. The two know each other’s tennis well, but the stakes have shifted: a place in an ATP final is on the line.
The story is already a good one for Van Assche. Saturday it might turn better.
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