Before the start of this year’s Terra Wortmann Open, tournament organisers and tennis fans would have been delighted at the idea of a Jannik Sinner v. Alexander Zverev final.
But the No. 1 and 2 seeds didn’t make it to the final day.
Sinner lost in the second round to unseeded eventual champion Alexander Bublik. Fans of Bublik, who represents Kazakhstan, know that their player is unpredictable. He can be blindingly brilliant or frustratingly error-ridden. He is not a player who grinds out a match, always with the shot percentages foremost in his mind. He improvises. And when it works, it’s delightful.
Photo: Terra Wortmann Open
As in 2023, when Bublik won his first Terra Wortmann Open, it was delight he provided to spectators throughout the 2025 tournament – a montage of drop shots, angled volleys, tweeners, top spin and slice groundstrokes, ferocious first and second serves, and a few underarm serves.
Just ask Alexandre Müller, Sinner, Tomáš Macháč, Karen Khachanov and Daniil Medvedev, all of whom he bamboozled on his way to victory.
In the final, 3rd seed Medvedev’s precise groundstrokes were no match for Bublik’s inventiveness. Standing metres behind the baseline, the Russian was often nowhere near where the ball landed. He was also “super tired” after his long, almost three hour, semifinal against Zverev the day before.
Bublik won the first set in just 26 minutes, after breaking to love in the seventh game and winning 12 points in a row. In the second set, the other side of Bublik briefly appeared to produce three double faults, though he saved set point with a delicate curling drop shot hit from the baseline.
In the tiebreak, Medvedev led 4-1. His backhand errors contributed to the loss of the next six points to hand the championship to Bublik, 6-3 7-6(4).
Photo: Vanessa Taylor
On his way to the final, Medvedev had ended the run of Alex Michelson of the US. The 20 year old spared his racquets in their quarter final and expressed his frustration by repeatedly throwing his cap on the ground. He had kept his focus though when midway through the second set, Medvedev lay down on his courtside couch – a sponsor had provided couches for the sit-downs instead of chairs – with a bleeding nose that required a medical time out.
Showing plenty of promise, Michelson had started the tournament by taking out 5th seed Francisco Cerundolo, 2-6, 7-5 6-4 and Stefanos Tsitsipas in Round 2 in another tight match, 7-6(5) 7-5.
With new coach Goran Ivanišević in his box, Tsitsipas survived a tough first round 6-4 3-6 7-6(5) against Argentina’s Luciano Darderi. But he could not get past Michelson, who nervelessly won 7-6(5) 7-5.
Photo: Vanessa Taylor
Many of the fans present at the event would loved to have seen Alexander Zverev lift the champion’s trophy. But it wasn’t to be. His easiest match was the first round defeat of 43-ranked American Marcos Giron for the loss of only three games.
Thereafter, 10 aces and zero doubles faults helped him through a difficult match with Lorenzo Sonego, Sinner’s doubles partner at the event, 3-6 6-4 7-6(2).
During his quarterfinal with another Italian, Flavio Cobolli, Zverev suddenly ran off the court at 1-0 and Deuce as his opponent waited for him to serve. When he returned to the court five minutes later, Zverev’s gesture to his team suggested he had vomited.
Then at 3-1 he started fiddling with his knee. Nonetheless, he managed a straight sets win, 6-4 7-6(6).
The matches on quarterfinal day were all straight sets and lasted for around an hour. The semis were another story – both matches were of the quality worthy of a final.
First up was Zverev playing Medvedev. At 4-4 15-15 in the first set, the Russian again had to take a medical time out for a blood nose but went on to win the tiebreak to 3 and go 2-0 up in the second set. But with the crowd behind him, Zverev defended three match points and forced another tiebreak. This time he allowed Medvedev to win only one point then revved the crowd up further.
During the third set, Zverev was leaning on his hunches or stretching the arches of his feet while holding onto the net. Medvedev had broken him for 2-1 and Zverev couldn’t win any of his three break back points in the next game. Although seeming at times tired and deflated, Zverev persisted and saved another match point in the final game. But Medevev converted his fifth. The match lasted a minute under three hours.
Zverev’s fans have urged him to win the tournament nine times now. Three times he has made the semis and twice the final. Tournament director since the inaugural 1993 edition, Ralf Weber, felt the need to explain the pressure the German player is under when playing in Germany, especially as Zverev had just the week before lost a straight sets final in Stuttgart to Taylor Fritz, ending with a 0-7 tiebreak. “’Sascha’ is often quickly criticized for all sorts of things,” said Weber. “But we know him as a highly ambitious, driven, world-class athlete who always wants to get the best out of himself.”
In the second semi, Khachanov’s solid net play trumped Bublik’s flair in the first set, breaking him for 3-1, before Bublik’s sublime shot-making could no longer be contained. Khachanov had 5-5 in the second set tiebreak but Bublik charged the net on the back of a second serve to snatch a point on Khachanov’s serve and then proceeded to level the score at a set all.
In the decider, Bublik earned his first break point at 3-3 and didn’t look back. He claimed the match 6-4 7-6(5) 6-4 in just over two hours. The closeness of the match was evident by the fact that Khachanov won 100 points to 96 but lost. Both players converted one break point but it was the timing of the breaks that made all the difference.
As Bublik summed up the match, “I made the most of my opportunities”.
Photo: Terra Wortmann Open
After he defeated Medvedev in the final, Bublik received his trophy from Boris Becker, who is celebrating the 40th anniversary of his first Wimbledon win and has a new autobiography coming out.
As for Sinner, the unsuccessful defending champion could at least be consoled the day after his loss by the release of his first music offering – a duet with Andrea Bocelli where several of his tennis speeches are incorporated into the song “Polvere e Gloria” (Dust and Glory).
Title image from the 2025 Terra Wortmann Poster