Andrey Rublev’s Russian language failed him

The day of the semi-finals at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, a 500 category tournament of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) with a prize fund of $3 million, was marked by a scandal rare for competitions of this level. Last year’s finalist Andrei Rublev was disqualified in the third set of the meeting with Alexander Bublik from Kazakhstan for insulting the linesman. Last year’s champion Daniil Medvedev also failed to reach the final, losing in two games to the Frenchman Hugues Ambert.

There was no doubt even before the start of the semi-finals that it would be very difficult for Daniil Medvedev and Andrei Rublev to repeat their success last year, when they played each other for the title of the Dubai tournament in the final. After all, both Alexander Bublik and Yug Amber are strongest on a fast hard court – the type of surface that is used at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Stadium and is best suited for players with a good serve. It is no coincidence that both of them recently won titles in tournaments held under the roof in French halls. In addition, Bublik, familiar to Rublev since childhood, is traditionally a difficult opponent for him. Therefore, the balance that was established on the court following the tiebreakers played in the first and second games did not surprise anyone.

In the third set, during which the Russian first took someone else’s serve, but then lost his own, everything was also heading towards a tiebreaker, but with the score 6:5 in Bublik’s favor, an unexpected outcome came. After the final point in the eleventh game, Rublev, who had repeatedly given vent to emotions before, shouted at the line judge, who, in his opinion, made a mistake and looked at the out after Bublik’s hit. It was impossible to verify the validity of the Russian’s claims using the system for electronically recording the ball hit, since he himself did not interrupt the game at the right moment, and the played shot is not checked according to the ATP rules.

The tower umpire, German Miriam Bley, initially left this episode without consequences, but then she was approached by another line arbiter, who, as it turned out, knows Russian. It was he who explained that Rublev used a Russian expression with the word “moron.” The supervisor, German Roland Herfel, was called onto the court, and although Rublev categorically denied that he spoke to the lineman in Russian, it all ended in the athlete’s disqualification. Analysis of the video recording of the emotional episode with the participation of the Russian, which instantly spread on social networks, due to the noise of the stands, does not allow us to understand what exactly he said verbatim. But the word “moron” can be heard there very clearly. Be that as it may, the tennis player’s punishment will almost certainly not be limited to one disqualification. If no additional decisions are made, then, according to the rules, he will be deprived of $157 thousand in prize money earned for reaching the semifinals and 200 rating points. Thus, on Monday Rublev will leave the top five in the world classification.

It can be added that disqualification at major tournaments is usually applied after players unwittingly use physical force on the referees. This was the case, for example, in the cases of David Nalbandian, who in 2012 at a tournament in London broke an advertising board with a kick, injuring the linesman, and Novak Djokovic, who accidentally kicked the ball after a play in the face of the linesman at the US Open in 2020.

In the other semi-final, between the fourth racket of the world Daniil Medvedev and Hugues Amber, there were fewer emotions, and it all ended with the defeat of the clear favorite of the tournament. The 25-year-old French left-hander, now ranked 18th in the ATP rankings, played an excellent match, combining a sharp serve with active actions on the back line. In the first game, everything was decided by a single break made by Amber in the 12th game. At the beginning of the second game, he exchanged serves with the Russian, after which in the eighth game he again went into the lead and eventually won in less than two hours – 7:5, 6:3.

From Dubai, both top Russian players fly to Indian Wells, where the BNP Paribas Open, the first 1000-category tournament on the ATP calendar this season, begins on Wednesday. Rublev was eliminated there last year in the 1/8 finals, and Medvedev reached the final, in which lost to the Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz.

Evgeniy Fedyakov