Alexander Bublik’s French Open fairytale came to an end at the hands of the ruthless Jannik Sinner. The world No. 62 stunned two top-10 players en route to his first Grand Slam quarter-final but was no match for the top seed, who needed less than two hours to dispatch Bublik with a 6-1 7-5 6-0 victory.

The Kazakh is known for his on-court antics and has had his fair share of bust-ups with umpires. But he could do nothing but concede to a dominant Sinner and took the one-sided result in his stride. After the match, Bublik joked: “I almost got him guys.”

A former top-20 player, Bublik went on a heroic run at Roland Garros, coming from two sets down to beat Alex de Minaur in round two before downing Jack Draper to reach the quarter-final.

But he ran out of steam against Sinner and, barring a close second set, never really troubled the three-time Grand Slam champion. Bublik hit 37 unforced errors to just 13 from the Italian, and was broken six times in the match.

He was still in good spirits, however, and had a fitting reaction to his straight-set drubbing.

In the comments on one of Roland Garros’ Instagram videos of the match, Bublik wrote: “I almost got him guys.”

It’s not the first time Bublik has had fun with Sinner in social media comments. When they met at the 2021 Miami Open, the Kazakh told his young opponent that he wasn’t human.

And he reminded the tennis world of his prediction after Sinner thrashed Casper Ruud 6-0 6-1 in Rome last month, writing: “I told you in 2021 he’s not a human.”

Although Bublik was joking at the time, the 27-year-old has watched Sinner grow into one of the world’s best players, and his statement now arguably rings true.

After Wednesday’s quarter-final, he said: “No, that was a joke back then. He was so young and already so focused on playing so well. He reached the final that year in 2021 Miami.

“Now he's an established top two players of the world right now. He deserves No. 1. He's a multiple Grand Slam champion.

“That's something, you know, that probably few people can touch in general. So for me, I believe as I have said many times, he's in another dimension with all the aspects of the game.

“Being able to face him another time, it's really nice for the experience, and you try to get something from it, you know, some positives. You see what I was doing was harming him a bit in the second set, so that means I have a little hope in the next times when I'm gonna face similar players, similar like top players that I'm capable of damaging them.

“So this is what was important for me, but on his side, I think his tennis already proved everything, you know, and he's going to be for years, years to come.”