French Open: Bublik stuns Draper; reaches first Grand Slam quarterfinal

Paris, June 3 (IANS) Alexander Bublik of Kazakhstan continued his mesmerising run in the French Open 2025, making a breakthrough by securing a maiden quarterfinals appearance at the Grand Slam level, securing his place with a four-set upset of Jack Draper here on Monday.

Having never been beyond the second round at the clay-court major since his junior days, Bublik scalped his second Top 10 victim of the week with a 5-7, 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 victory against Draper.

Bublik, who came back from two sets down to defeat Alex de Minaur of Australia in an earlier round, became the first Kazakhstani man to reach a singles Grand Slam quarterfinal in the sport's history.

"Sometimes in life, there's only one chance, and I had a feeling that that was mine, and I couldn't let it slip," an emotional Bublik said in an on-court interview, after a full minute's standing ovation from the Court Suzanne-Lenglen crowd. "Standing here, it's the best moment of my life, period."

At No. 62 in the ATP Rankings, Bublik is the lowest-ranked man to earn two Top 10 wins at Roland Garros since No. 100 Andrei Medvedev beat Pete Sampras and Gustavo Kuerten to reach the 1999 final. The 27-year-old Bublik, who hit a career-high of World No. 17 last May, has moved to the brink of the Top 40 behind his four Paris wins.

Against Draper, who is up to No. 4 this week in the ATP Live Rankings, Bublik won 79 percent of his first-serve points and converted on five of six break points, according to Infosys Stats. The victory was his first in three Lexus ATP Head2Head matchups with the British No. 1.

Bublik had reached the fourth round once before at a major, at Wimbledon in 2023. The biggest surprise is not that he has advanced one round further, but that he has done it on the red clay of Roland Garros.

All of Bublik's four tour-level titles and 11 finals have come on either hard or grass courts. His 25 wins and 41 percent win rate on clay entering Roland Garros are both his lowest marks across all surfaces.

This season, he reached the fourth round at the Madrid ATP Masters 1000 and won the Turin ATP Challenger Tour event on clay.

Bublik will bid to continue his dream Roland Garros run against Jannik Sinner or Andrey Rublev, who will square off in Monday evening's match to complete the quarter-final lineup in Paris.

--IANS

bsk/