Rowdy US Open crowd seems the perfect fit for Rublev
The Russian seems to revel amid the chaos of the Flushing Meadows crowd, where he has enjoyed the most success. Next challenge: his friend Daniil Medvedev in the quarter-final
Antoine Couvercelle / Panoramic
They say it helps to be a little crazy if you want to succeed in New York. If that’s true, then Andrey Rublev might just be in the right place.
The Russian has a reputation for a bit of craziness, not least in the way he can sometimes react to adversity on court. But amid the hustle and bustle of Flushing Meadows, where the noise of the ball can even be drowned out by the aeroplanes flying above, that’s just fine.
“Sometimes they scream in the middle of rallies”
The US Open is where the Russian first broke through, reaching the quarter-finals when he was a mop-haired kid in 2017. The hair is still the same but since then, Rublev has been to the last eight on two other occasions, including last year. Something about the place seems to suit him just fine.
“Every slam is a different atmosphere,” he said at Flushing Meadows on Saturday. “And in New York it’s always been like this. “Also you have a special feeling about this because you start to have a crazy atmosphere which sometimes helps you.
“Some slams, like Wimbledon, they’re super quiet. Here they are cheering, they support, they scream – sometimes during the rally, between the rallies – and it’s different. All of them are good. It’s just you go this week is like this, let’s enjoy this. I think it’s better that there is something different.”
Outside courts even rowdier than the show courts in New York
Rublev is carrying on the form he has shown here in the past and in general this year. Though he has still to reach the semis of any of the slams – losing eight out of eight quarter-finals thus far – he won his first Masters 1000 title in Monte-Carlo in April and seems relaxed.
How the crowd reacts, he said, depends on which court you play on. His fourth-round match with Britain’s Jack Draper should be on one of the two biggest showcourts but Rublev is used to playing all over the complex and everywhere brings something different.
“I think it depends on the court you play,” he said. “My last two matches were on Grandstand so you don’t have that much noise. When you play on these courts in a row (the outside courts), especially for players who are not high seeded or not seeded at all, then I think it’s not easy because you play on one court, you hear a scream from another court. But it’s a part of the game, it’s a part of the sport. You have to pass this journey.
Rublev doesn’t even hear the groan, because he groans himself
With a volatile temperament, Rublev is not averse to breaking the odd racket but sometimes his anger results in unintentional pain. Punching his strings, a la Andy Murray of old, often yields bloody knuckles while he’s also hit himself with the racket on several occasions.
Occasionally, the crowd will go quiet. That brings its own problems; when a player makes a poor mistake, they can groan in dismay. Some players hate that, but Rublev said he understands their frustration.
“I have the same feeling (as them) if I miss the shot,” he said. “I don’t even realise (what they’re doing) because I do exactly what the crowd do at the same time.”
