Nikoloz Basilashvili will take on Andrey Rublev in the fourth round of the Rome Masters on Tuesday, a meeting that brings back a rivalry that once tilted the Georgian’s way on clay and now arrives with both men deep into the Internazionali BNL d’Italia.

The 34-year-old Basilashvili, ranked world No. 117, has already turned the week into one of the more unlikely runs in Rome. He came through qualifying to reach the main draw, then beat Daniel Merida, Ben Shelton and Brandon Nakashima to earn another shot at one of the tour’s biggest names. Rublev, the 14th-ranked Russian, moved into the last 16 with straight-set wins over Miomir Kecmanovic and Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.

Tuesday will mark the eighth time the two have met in their careers, and the memory that still stands out is their last clay-court meeting in 2019, when Basilashvili beat Rublev 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 in the Hamburg final. Rublev still leads the head-to-head series 4-3, but that result showed Basilashvili can trouble him when the match turns into a straight hit-from-the-baseline duel.

That is the tension in this one. Basilashvili also does not generally do well against opponents who can strike the ball as big as he does from the baseline, which makes Rublev a difficult style matchup even with the earlier clay-court win in Basilashvili’s pocket. At the same time, the Georgian’s route through qualifying and three main-draw victories has already shown he is playing with the kind of form that can make rankings and recent history look secondary for a day.

For Basilashvili, the match is another test of how far a player can go after dropping out of the top 1000 a couple of seasons ago and climbing back into the world’s top-level conversation. For Rublev, it is a chance to protect the edge in a rivalry that has rarely been simple. The winner moves on with the quarterfinals in Rome within reach, and the shape of this match may come down to whether Basilashvili can make it physical enough to repeat what he did in Hamburg six years ago.