“That boy has serious psychological problems”- Alexander Zverev’s 2022 Acapulco breakdown receives brutal scrutiny from fans revisiting the incident after Andrey Rublev’s controversial Dubai debacle

The drama surrounding World No. 5 Andrey Rublev continues. The Russian had an aggressive meltdown during the semi-finals at last week’s Dubai Championships. A runner-up at the ATP-500 event in 2023, the Russian No. 2 was looking to repeat the feat and win the title this year.

But things took an ugly turn in the 11th game of the third set. His opponent, Alexander Bublik, was serving with the score tied at 5-5. After he won the point to take a 6-5 lead, Rublev went towards a line judge and aggressively screamed in his face. The visuals were terrible but the line judge did not respond to it.

However, one of the officials complained to the chair umpire on the second seed swearing in Russian. The umpire asked for the tournament supervisor who confronted the player on this. Despite his pleas and efforts to prove his innocence, the supervisor defaulted him from the tournament right away.

This also led to Rublev losing all his ranking points and prize money won during the week. Things however took another turn when the Russian appealed against the decision a few hours later. In a shocking turn of events, the ATP returned the points and prize money and issued just a fine of $36,000.

Rublev later issued a statement on the situation but faced criticism for his choice of words. Many felt he was let off very cheaply. Some even remembered the incident being quite similar to Alexander Zverev‘s meltdown in Acapulco in 2022.

The German after losing his doubles match was frustrated with the chair umpire. In a moment of anger, he smashed his racket on the umpire’s stand. But as he had already lost the match, he was not defaulted but issued a big fine of $40,000 while being removed from the singles draw as well.

Fans draw a parallel between Andrey Rublev and Alexander Zverev

The German along with the fine and removal from the singles draw was also put on probation for a year. But he was not suspended, similar to Rublev. This infuriated many fans of the lack of strictness of the ATP.

Many compared the softness of the Tour citing the case of Novak Djokovic. The Serb had been defaulted from the 2020 US Open for hitting a lineswoman. Although his shot was entirely accidental, he was still defaulted, fined, and ranking points removed. This certainly triggered the Nole fam.

But in the case of Rublev and Zverev, it was intentional yet ATP didn’t take any strong action. Many fans took to social media to express their anger.

With the 2024 Indian Wells Masters starting soon, the media will certainly question other players on their take on this. Pros like Nick Kyrgios and Reilly Opelka have made their stance clear. But fans would want to know what legends like Djokovic and Rafael Nadal have to say on this whole controversy.

In case you missed it:

• “Hell has frozen over”- Stefanos Tsitsipas and Daniil Medvedev bury the hatchet with an unexpected practice session ahead of Indian Wells, fans have a field day on social media
• Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf’s children Jaz and Jaden were never starstruck by their parents, the ATP legend reveals

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