Turin (Italy) – One of the moments that caught the most attention in Andrey Rublev’s defeat to Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz this Wednesday was when the Russian decided, in a fit of fury, to hit his own leg with his racket, right after losing the first set and suffer a break at the beginning of the second.
When asked how his knee was, which started to bleed a little with the rackets, he said there were no problems. ” Everything is fine. Anything. Nothing happened,” said Rublev, who did not hide his disappointment with his performance in the match, which sealed his elimination from the ATP Finals.
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“It’s not easy because you always want to finish the season well. Sometimes you’re disappointed when that’s not happening. Today something happened that disappointed me and I couldn’t recover”, lamented the Russian.
A ‘let’ call when Alcaraz was serving at 6/5 in the first set ended up throwing Rublev out of tune. “It was an unfortunate decision, but it’s part of the sport. This happens in every match. But often when they make the wrong calls, it happens at an important point,” he commented.
“After that point, he played very well, made an incredible serve. I think he nailed it or something. Then he made an ace and it was already 30-0. Of course, it’s not the same if you’re 0-15 or 30-0, they’re different things. So yeah, that’s basically it,” added the Russian.
Rublev also said that losing to a friend, as was the case in the previous match against compatriot Daniel Medvedev, or to Alcaraz doesn’t make a difference. I don’t like losing, no matter who the opponent is. I leave disappointed, especially now realizing that the season is over.”
With no chance of advancing anymore, the Russian is now looking for the strength to at least do well in the last game of the group stage, against Alexander Zverev. “To be honest, I don’t expect anything now. It will be the last match and at least I will try to do something better than in the previous two. I want to at least finish well”, he concluded.
