At the Wimbledon 2021, Alexander Bublik is the man to watch out for. This aging tennis star is enjoying the best season of his career. The 24-year-old Kazakhstani has established himself amongst the world’s top 40, is at the summit of the aces leaderboard for 2021 and is into the third round at Wimbledon for the first time, thanks to a composed 6-4, 7-6(6), 7-6(4) win against former semi-finalist Grigor Dimitrov.
He has reached two finals this season, in Antalya and Singapore, and made it to the last eight at the Masters 1000 events in Miami and Madrid.
Bublik’s 507 aces in 40 matches puts him 154 aces ahead of even Matteo Berrettini on the leaderboard.
The powerful ageing man at Wimbledon 2021 Bublik
His serve has become such a reliable weapon – he hit 34 aces against Dimitrov – you would think he has been spending hours on the practice court. In fact, Bublik says he hasn’t served more than 20 balls in any training session for the past year and a half, and that he never works on his spots nor places cones for targets.
“The tennis you see on the court that I produce, and off the court interviews, I’m just trying to be myself,” Bublik said.
“I’ve never done it in my life. At some point with my serve I found the rhythm and I just try to maintain the rhythm and to maintain all the little aspects of the serve so they work properly together. The serve is a complete motion and you’ve got to be always precise with what you do in order to keep the ball very clean.”
“He’s a hell of a player. The thing I love about him, obviously I see similarities with game style, but just how he carries himself. He’s his own man,” Kyrgios said of the world No.38. I know for a fact he doesn’t take **** from anyone.”
“He’s pretty creative, man. I feel like I’m an old soul on tour. It’s good to see another guy like that kind of take my place when I do eventually go. All the tennis world will be like, ‘Thank God Kyrgios is gone’, you’re going to have to deal with Bublik now. That’s just the way it’s going to be.”
