Almaty, October 21: Kukushkin's Home Farewell Meets Tsitsipas

Almaty's Wednesday mixes the start of the tournament with its second round. Mattia Bellucci and Tomas Martin Etcheverry open the singles schedule in the first round. Later, Andrey Rublev begins his campaign, and Mikhail Kukushkin plays another evening of a farewell he keeps postponing.

Each of these three matches has a story about time. A veteran is not ready to leave, a former top player is searching for something that lasts, and a young Italian wants to carry a good week a little further. These are the matches I want to talk about, in order of play:

• 06:30 — Bellucci — Etcheverry
• 09:30 — Mannarino — Rublev
• 14:30 — Tsitsipas — Kukushkin

Times are UTC.

Mattia Bellucci — Tomas Martin Etcheverry

Bellucci arrives in Almaty with a title from Jinan still fresh on him. His last four matches on hard courts were all wins, all in straight sets. The one loss in his last five, a three-setter against Yi Zhou, now looks like a stone he has already stepped over.

Etcheverry is carrying a very different autumn. He has lost four of his last five, and several of those defeats were close: 5-7 in the decider against Dalibor Svrcina, and a three-set loss to Stefanos Tsitsipas after he had won the first set. His Asian swing keeps stalling just as it seems ready to start. His 2026 numbers tell the same story. He is far more at home on clay than on hard courts, where he has won fewer matches than he has lost this year.

They have met once, in the second round in Rome in May. Bellucci, a left-hander, lost the first set and then took over, winning 5-7 6-2 6-3. That was on clay, Etcheverry's best surface, which makes the result worth more than a single line suggests. I do have one doubt. Momentum from a title run does not always survive the flight to a new city, and this is Bellucci's first test of that.

To my eye, Bellucci is slightly closer to the win, mostly because of how differently these two carry their weeks. Etcheverry's losses have been tight rather than lopsided, though, so I expect a match that runs long. The over on 22.5 games looks more natural to me than a quick finish. The picture is murky enough that I would not call it confidently either way.

Adrian Mannarino — Andrey Rublev

Rublev has already previewed this match himself, and he did it honestly. Speaking before his opponent was confirmed, he picked out the problem: "And the surface they've laid here suits him" (Championat). He meant Mannarino's low, flat ball. Rublev added that he would need patience and would have to wait for the right moment to attack.

Patience has rarely been the first word anyone uses about Rublev. That is what makes this match interesting to me. He told Championat that he felt genuinely good in Hangzhou and Beijing, especially when building baseline exchanges, and that the feeling then slipped away. His record supports that account: a win over Tallon Griekspoor in a final-set tie-break, then a straight-sets loss to Rei Sakamoto in Shanghai. Since then he has been training in Almaty and says the place feels almost like home.

At 38, Mannarino is still the kind of opponent who makes power look clumsy. He knows this event well, with a 12-3 record in Almaty. Against Aleksandar Vukic he won the opening tie-break, lost the middle set and still closed it out 6-3 in the decider. Shortly before that, he beat Flavio Cobolli in three sets, which shows his left-handed, low-bouncing game can still upset players of much higher rank.

Their head-to-head leans heavily one way. Rublev leads 4-1. His recent wins were dominant: 7-5 6-2 6-3 at Wimbledon in 2025, 6-3 6-0 on hard courts in Shanghai in 2023, and 6-1 6-2 indoors in Astana in 2022. Mannarino's only win came in Moscow in 2021, in a long, twisting three-setter. It is the exception, but it shows exactly what this match looks like when Rublev loses patience.

Stefanos Tsitsipas — Mikhail Kukushkin

Kukushkin came to Almaty to say goodbye and has so far refused to leave. He beat Stefanos Sakellaridis 7-6(4) 7-6(3), and it was anything but a comfortable farewell. He let chances to finish slip, lived through some uneasy stretches and held himself together when it mattered. Afterwards he summed it up himself: "This is the kind of match that describes my whole career" (Tennis Majors).

There is a gentle irony in that sentence. He also admitted he had played very little tennis after deciding to retire. He is a 38-year-old Kazakh playing on nerve, the home crowd and memory, without a full season of preparation behind him. That is a preparation issue rather than a reported injury, but it matters over a long evening.

Tsitsipas arrives from the opposite direction, rebuilding rather than closing a chapter. Back trouble once made him question his future. He told Gazzetta that specialist treatment now lets him play without pain: "Now I can finally focus on the game I love most" (Gazzetta). That is his own account, not a medical report, but his results fit it. He has beaten Taylor Fritz and Luciano Darderi recently, and he edged Aleksandar Kovacevic 7-6(9) 3-6 6-3 here. That last match showed resilience more than dominance.

The head-to-head is 4-0 for Tsitsipas, and Kukushkin has made every meeting hard work. In 2019 he took the Marseille final to 7-5 7-6(5), and the 2018 match in Dubai went to three sets. Their most recent meeting, in Astana in 2022, was more straightforward at 6-3 6-4 indoors. Kukushkin also has the longer rest, having played his opener before Tsitsipas played his.

Kukushkin's goodbye, Rublev's patience and Bellucci's momentum

For me, the day turns on three questions. Can Bellucci carry his good week into a new city? Can Rublev stay patient against a ball that refuses to sit up? And how long can Kukushkin keep the evening going before Tsitsipas brings it to an end? If I had time for only one match, it would be the last one, because farewells like this do not come around often.

These are my impressions, built on stories, form and a fair amount of doubt. The concrete picks for these matches belong to the AI cappers on the match pages, and they get far more specific than I do.