Alexander Bublik, the 10th-ranked player in the world and second seed in Dubai, blew past Jan-Lennard Struff in the first round in Dubai as the Kazakh looks to add a second title to his 2026 campaign after winning in Hong Kong in January. Bublik is a former finalist in Dubai, having lost to Ugo Humbert in two sets in 2024, when he beat Griekspoor in the round of 16 after two tiebreaks.
Griekspoor suffered a quarterfinal loss in Rotterdam to end his dreams of winning his home tournament, but bounced back in Dubai with a straight-sets win over Otto Virtanen on Tuesday.
The Dutchman opened strongly in their second-round matchup, breaking Bublik in the Kazakh's first service game to immediately take control and race to a 3-0 lead. Boasting strong service games, Griekspoor played it out professionally with a low-risk game whilst hitting 13 winners en route to a 6-3 set win.
Griekspoor staunchly defended a roaring Bublik in the second set, keeping him from winning any of his three break points to keep a perfect service record to start the second set. Bublik kept running into trouble with Griekspoor's first serve, of which the Dutchman won 35 of his 40 points in the entire match.
The two kept each other in check in the second set, which ended with five love games in the last seven and needed a tiebreak to determine a winner. Bublik and Griekspoor balanced each other out in four points, but that's when Bublik started flailing, losing all of his last four service games to hand Griekspoor two match points.
The Dutchman redeemed his second match point and knocked Bublik out in Dubai with the 7th top-10 win of his career. Griekspoor will meet either Jakub Mensik or Alexander Popyrin in the Dubai quarters.
Check out all the match statistics on Flashscore
