“There’s no war in tennis” Andrey Rublev says Russian players wanted to team up with Ukrainian players in mixed doubles at the Wimbledon
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Andrey Rublev
Andrey Rublev is a Russian professional tennis player. He has been ranked as high as world No. 5 in singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), which he first achieved in September 2021. Rublev has won 11 ATP Tour singles titles. He has a career-high doubles ranking of No. 59, achieved on 18 October, 2021. He has won three doubles titles and is an Olympic gold medalist, winning the mixed doubles title at the 2020 Summer Olympics with Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
Rublev is currently playing in the German Open in both singles and doubles categories, with his fellow countryman Karen Khachanov, the Russian pair is looking great and is scheduled to play the Italian pair of Fabio Fognini and Simone Bolelli in the round of 16. Rublev has also reached the Round of 32 in the men’s singles category where the former world no. 5 will play his Alexander Bublik, who belongs to his neighbouring state Kazakhstan.
Andrey Rublev reveals that Russian and Belarusian players wanted to play with Ukrainian players as their teammates
Andrey is also one of those Russian athletes who were denied entry into this year’s Wimbledon because Russia invaded Ukraine. He recently came up on an interview with Russian blogger Vitya Kravchenko on his YouTube channel where the latter revealed that many players wanted to play with their Ukrainian counterparts as their teammates in the mixed doubles category to show that there is no war in the game of tennis.
“We offered some solutions that could be really helpful diplomatically. Playing mixed doubles with Ukrainian players, not playing for the prize. We wanted to show there’s no war in tennis,” said Rublev. The Russian also said that Russian and some Belarusian players were ready to even abstain from attending the presentation ceremony if it came to that. This is because the primary message of peace was their ultimate goal.
But the 24 years old had to be upset about the decision made by the All England Club. He stated that it was “upsetting” to see his dreams shatter due to circumstances outside his control. The organisers refused the idea coined by Rublev because they were worried if any Russian player wins the tournament then their government will use the whole situation as propaganda which ultimately happened when Elena Rybakina who is a Russian born-Kazakh won the women’s singles title.
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