Dutchman Tallon Griekspoor fought through a mid-match hamstring injury to defeat world No. 18 Andrey Rublev 7-5, 7-6(6) in the Dubai semifinals, booking his spot in the final.

Rublev, making his fifth Dubai semifinal appearance, had advanced with wins over Valentin Royer, Ugo Humbert, and Arthur Rinderknech, but was unable to overcome Griekspoor’s resilience.

Griekspoor, coming off a challenging latter half of the 2025 season, has been in strong form lately, reaching the quarterfinals of the ABN AMRO Open in Rotterdam and overcoming Alexander Bublik and Jakub Mensik to reach Dubai’s last four.

Both players held serve early, with Rublev applying pressure in the ninth game. Griekspoor responded with four consecutive aces to erase a 30-0 deficit and keep his serve. Rublev forced the first break point in the 11th game, but Griekspoor erased it before succumbing briefly due to a double fault, signaling his physio about hamstring discomfort. Ultimately, he battled through, using aces to secure the first set 7-5 after a medical timeout.

Griekspoor received additional treatment during the set break and faced early pressure in the second set, coming back from 0-40 to hold serve. Despite Rublev hitting 100% on his first serves in the second set, he could not break Griekspoor, with the set heading to a tiebreak.

In the tiebreak, Rublev initially took a mini-break and earned set points, but Griekspoor produced a huge return and won the decisive points to claim victory, reaching his first ATP Tour final since Mallorca 2025.

Griekspoor will meet third seed Daniil Medvedev, who defeated Felix Auger-Aliassime in straight sets, for the Dubai title.