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By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Saturday January 30, 2021


In an excellent recently released video from Sports.RU, tennis fans have been given a chance to get to know Andrey Rublev a lot better. The current world No.8 is coming off a career season that saw him lead the ATP in titles and earn 41 match victories.

Fans got a chance to get to know Rublev, who reached two Grand Slam quarter-finals in 2020 and won the award for being the ATP's most improved player, a lot better through the press and on their television screens over the course of the season, but this video is done intimately and offers an even deeper picture of what the 23-year-old from Moscow is really like.


Here are some of the things we learned from the 47-minute feature.

1. His mom used to mimic him when he would go nuts on the tennis court as a junior

It’s no secret that Rublev was a hothead as a junior and, though he tries to contain it these days, he’s still a bit temperamental. Rublev had a laugh while reminiscing about his mom, who was his No.1 coach as he developed. He said he would go nuts and he would look over and see his mom mimicking him to show him just how silly he was. It's taken him a while to get the intended message, but it is seeping in.

2. His parents were strict with him when he was young

Rublev said his parents kept a close eye on what he did and who he did it with for all of his youth. He realizes that the surveillance was done to ensure that he didn’t hang around with the wrong crowd, and he appreciates what they did for him.

But, he adds, they did overlook one thing: “If I wanted a bad influence I’d find it,” he says with a laugh.

3. Rublev has lost his sense of home on the circuit

“I've definitely lost a sense of home over the years,” Rublev says of his nomad existence on the tour. And he says that he still doesn’t really know himself all that well. He’s simply too busy with the business of tennis.

“I currently don’t [know myself],” he says. “I don’t know yet, I’m searching for answers to this. Time will tell.”

4. Rublev fell into a depressed state last year after he learned of his grandmother’s passing

“I think it was the worst in Hamburg,” he said, of learning from his father that his beloved grandmother, whose home he lived at for many years as a youth, had passed. “I don’t know, it just hit me harder for some reason. Lots of feelings. Lots of anxiety about Grandma and Grandpa.”

Rublev also adds that his bad feelings were exacerbated by the sense of loneliness that tennis players felt in the bubble last year. “Also this damn bubble,” he said. “All I saw only hotels and court. I don’t know, it was all at once.”

Rublev says he wanted to talk about it in the media, which he did, right away, to honor her.

"I did want to tell right away, because… not really to share, more like to honor her," he said. "I think it had to be done, not for myself… but to highlight the fact that she lived a decent life, it’s worth telling about.”

5. Rublev is not great at texting people back

He doesn’t message his sister Arina very often, but he does remember the family birthdays. She told this story in an interview, with Rublev present, saying that he never messages her first. Rublev laughed and said that he doesn’t text anybody first: “Khachanov gets angry at me for not replying to his messages for days, or for never messaging him first, or for something else,” he said.

Arina also told funny stories about Andrey kicking her out of a match that he had against Kyrgios at the Kremlin Cup in Moscow. And again at the US Open, when the family, realizing how stressed Andrey got when they are at his matches, tried to sneak into the top level of the stands so as not to be noticed. He noticed and started yelling at them.

6. Arina, also a tennis player, is not jealous of her brother

Arina says: “I saw all my life, I saw how passionate Andrey is about tennis. I knew that tennis was his life. He simply slept with a racket! I saw all of this and it would be primitive to be jealous.”

7. Rublev threw up at Khachanov’s wedding

Rublev says he was late to the wedding of his friend and fellow Russian star Karen Khachanov, and was forced to do “penalty drinks” by several friends, including Khachanov himself. It didn’t turn out so well, but he didn’t have a hangover the next day, Rublev said.

He did, however get sick: “Literally, in all the directions,” he said.

8. His favorite forehand is Dominic Thiem

Asked to pick the forehand he admires the most he was quick to answer: Thiem.

9. He wants to be a lot faster

Rublev is always working extremely hard on his game. It’s how he got to where he is, but he clearly isn’t happy with where he is at in spite of all the success he had in 2020. He says he needs to improve his footwork drastically.

“I’m not as fast as I could be,” he said. “I could be a lot faster. My feet movements, I could be a lot faster. I am feeling that it’s not my limit. I see how other guys who are taller than me are moving -- they’re faster. Their movements are faster, they are more balanced.”

Rublev says his compatriot, Daniil Medvedev, who is 6’6”, is much faster.

“Look how he is running -- that’s something. He’s much taller than me, at least 10 cm and he runs like twice as fast as me.”

Rublev says he also wants to improve his accuracy:

“Yes, I’m sure I can do it better, because if you look at other tennis players, they can do it better," he said. "It often happens that I do one return precisely and three others are completely random. I see the ball, it’s easy to return if I properly hold my attention but I send the ball three metres out.”

10. Andrey has a rich sponsor named Andrei Bokarev

Rublev said that he has been and still is Sponsored by Andrei Bokarev, a Russian who is 56th in Forbes 200 richest businessmen of Russia, with a net worth $2 billion. Marat Safin called him the “man who invests in tennis in Russia.”

“My sponsor Andrei Bokarev helped me a lot,” he said. “I was his investment. We have certain agreements. Financially there’s no debt.”

Rublev says one of the “agreements” he has with Bokarev is that he has to play the Kremlin Cup.

The Russian also mentioned that he is in control of his own finances these days and his expenses are about $1 million a year, including $600,000 for his team. He said he has a simple “handshake” deal with his current coach Fernando Vicente (and pays him 10 percent of his prize money).

"Well if he’s honest and I’m honest…. He knows he can trust me, and I trust him," he said.

 

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