2024 was not a simple year for Andrey Rublev, who had several problems both on and off the tennis court. The Russian champion hoped to finally break the quarter-final curse in the Grand Slam tournaments, as he has not yet managed to play even a semi-final in a Major despite being a top player for several years now.
Andrey has had several outbursts of anger this year and many have sent him to be helped to find more serenity and inner balance. The Russian struggles to handle moments of greater stress and often explodes, destroying rackets and giving the feeling of not having control of his nerves.
Rublev© Rublev X account/Fair Use
His season seemed to be going well when he won the second Masters 1000 of his career in Madrid, beating 4-time Grand Slam champion Carlos Alcaraz during his run. Very complicated months followed, in which he did not achieve good results, until the decision to skip the Paris Olympics to work on himself.
Rublev returned in good shape during the Masters 1000 in Montreal, where he defeated world number 1 Jannik Sinner in three sets becoming the big favourite to lift the trophy. One step away from the finish, the Russian ace surrendered to a great Alexei Popyrin in the final.
A very complicated 2024
Andrey hopes to get great results in this last part of the season, so he can regain confidence and the right feelings ahead of 2025 (which will be a crucial year for his career). The Masters 1000 in Shanghai has officially started and it sees some of the most important tennis players around, we could say that except for some luxury injuries there are all the big ones and among them there is also Russian ace Andrey Rublev.
The tennis player – now stable in Top Ten for years – has made important statements to the portal BetBoom where he covered many topics and revealed something happened just before the tournament in Beijing, tournament that saw him go out in the quarti against Bu, Then defeated by World No.1 Jannik Sinner.
Rublev © Rublev X account/Fair Use
Trying to maintain privacy Rublev has used important words and made statements about a problem he had these days: “I was training, and preparing for China. Then just before the start, out of nowhere something unexpected happened. This in itself, as they said later, usually happens in children. I don’t know how to explain it better”.
Much confidentiality for this situation but it is after Rublev explained the turn could be much worse: “I try to be even more clear and let’s say that, in general, an operation was necessary which, if not carried out, would certainly have consequences. There could have been an amputation”.
It should be said that Rublev did not specify the part of the body that he risked losing but revealed that for 4-5 hours he saw it really bad and things could go much worse. Fortunately, this was not the case and Andrey played both the tournament in Beijing and Shanghai where he is engaged in these hours and will see him protagonist directly in the second round. The winner of the Masters 1000 in Madrid must make a mental step forward if he wants to win a Grand Slam title before the end of his career, especially with the rise of young champions like Alcaraz and Sinner.
A long road ahead
During a recent interview, Rublev opened up on his current difficulties: “Mentally I was out of order in recent months. I guess it was already a long moment of everything and I started to burn out, because I was struggling for many years with depression, with many things outside of the court. I guess this year it’s when I can’t handle it anymore, and it starts to just explode. It started to explode more and more on the court, because in life I was able to stay calm but inside the court I was burning everything.
Rublev© Rublev X account/Fair Use
For me, it is tough to see those things as well, but everyone fails sometimes. That was my week when I couldn’t manage my emotions and I couldn’t manage the stress that I was having. You work on it every day. There are many things in life that are stressing us out and make us very angry. You can practice how to be calm when you want to explode everything. Then my coach has the psychology lessons.” Fernando Vicente’s pupil still has time to give his career a new beginning, but the next few months will be crucial to see if he is on the right track. Andrey has had too many ups and downs this year, as well as showing a worrying frustration for a player of his caliber.