The world No. 11, Alexander Bublik, suffered a 6-4, 3-6, 5-7 defeat to American Learner Tien in the third round of the Rome Masters. After comfortably taking the first set, Bublik appeared poised to close out the match, but Tien refused to back down. From the second set onward, Bublik faced serious struggles on court, fully experiencing the exhausting style of play that has previously tormented players like Daniil Medvedev.
In the second set, Bublik allowed his opponent to break serve. Trailing 2-4, he smashed his racket in frustration. In the following game, the Kazakh sent a ball long after serving and erupted into a furious outburst.
“I feel terrible about this. I feel terrible that I can’t hit the ball,” was the cleaned-up version of Bublik’s address to his coaching staff—in reality, he used far harsher profanity.
Bublik, even by his own standards, cursed relentlessly during the closing stages of the match against Tien. His main complaint was, “Why me?”—implying that his opponents always bring their best tennis when facing him. He referenced Alex Molčan, Vitaliy Sachko, and Rinky Hijikata, players outside the top 100 to whom he had recently suffered shocking defeats in Munich, Metz, and Indian Wells, respectively.
“Where are they? Molčan, Sachko, Hijikata. Where are they? Why always against me?” Bublik swore while questioning his coach, Artem Suprunov.
To some extent, Molčan, Sachko, and Hijikata did overperform against Bublik, but linking them to Tien is not entirely fair. The world No. 21, Tien, will rise to at least a career-high No. 18 in the ATP rankings after reaching the Rome fourth round. This is far from the ceiling for the 20-year-old American, who has proven competitive even on slow clay. Previously, he shone mainly on hard courts, where he has beaten Alexander Zverev and defeated Daniil Medvedev three times, including at the last two Grand Slams—the Australian Open.
Medvedev, the 2021 US Open champion and former world No. 1, seems to have encountered a younger version of himself in Tien. The American excels at return and can retrieve almost any ball, while unforced errors are rare. Now Bublik has fully experienced Tien’s draining style, barely catching his breath between points in the third set.
Bublik’s emotional outburst quickly went viral, spawning memes across social media.
“Medvedev is probably sitting at home laughing at the TV watching Tien outplay Bublik. It must be funny when it’s not happening to you,” joked the popular tennis account Sis Chasing.
“Learner Tien earned his first top-50 clay-court win by knocking out Alexander Bublik. He becomes the youngest American to reach the fourth round of the Rome Masters since Andy Roddick in 2002,” noted Univers Tennis, highlighting a fascinating statistic.
“This is the best clay result of Tien’s career,” highlighted Portuguese journalist José Morgado.
“Tien came back after losing the first set and showed serious mental toughness on slow clay. While Bublik and other favorites fall one by one, this young player is making a name for himself,” concluded the Tennis AI account.
