“Promise I will try to learn from this and will try to be a better player and person” – Rublev

World No 5 Andrey Rublev has made his first statement on his controversial default from last week’s Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, promising to learn from the incident to become a better player and person.

The Russian was defaulted after screaming aggressively at a linesman in the closing stages of his semi-final against Alexander Bublik and an official complained to the Chair Umpire that Rublev had sworn in Russian. Rublev had denied that he used any abusive language when shouting at the linesman and repeatedly asked for a video review but to no avail.

On Monday, the ATP Tour announced that Rublev had appealed the decision to forfeit his ranking points and prize money for the entire week. As a result, the Russian got to keep the 200 ranking points for reaching the semi-finals and his prize money for the week which was reduced by the $36,400 fine levied on him.

Hours later, Rublev posted a statement on social media, which is his first reaction to the whole incident.

“I want to thank the appeal committee for approving my appeal and changing course on the ATPs initial decision of disqualifying me from the Dubai semifinal and taking away the rankings points and prize money I earned last week,” Andrey Rublev tweeted on X.

“I hope that in the future, the ATP will take a closer look at this rule and make changes to it, so that an official can’t force a match outcome without having clear evidence and not letting the player have a video review. While I am disappointed that I wasn’t able to finish my semifinal in Dubai, I am grateful for all the support I had from you the last two days, I received a lot of messages. Thank you to everyone supporting me, I promise I will learn from this and will try to be a better player and better person,” he concluded.

Rublev will be back in action later this week at the Indian Wells where he received a first-round bye. He will meet either former world No 1 Andy Murray or a qualifier in the second round.

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