Athletistic/Tennis. The fifth racket in the world, Russian tennis player Andrei Rublev, told what caused his nervous breakdown during an exhibition match. At the final UTS tournament, he lost to Denmark’s Holger Rune in the semifinals in three quarters, and after the second quarter he waved his fingers in front of the judge’s eyes, while cursing the referees and organizers.

“The score was 8: 9 and I hit a backhand into the net, after which Holger led 10: 8. I began to show that I wanted to take a card for three points (in UTS, a tennis player can use a card to make the next play worth three points – Rating Sports.ru). I didn’t say it in words, but I showed the judge three fingers. After that, the inscription “bonus card” appeared on the screen. I thought it was mine.

As a result, I won the next point and thought I was now leading 11:10. And then I won another point and decided the score was 12:10 in my favor. But in fact, the referee gave Rune a card, so the score was first 10:9, then 10:10.

I just asked the judge to check this moment. If Rune was the first to request a bonus card, no problem. But let’s check!

The end result was a very emotional moment. Of course, I should have reacted a little differently, but then I was disappointed. When you are fighting for every point during long rallies in a very intense match, your heart rate increases and this sometimes happens. In the end, all my work was worthless. My reaction was unacceptable, I understand. But what happened happened,” Rublev was quoted as saying by tennismajors.com.

Andrey Rublev lost all three matches in the group stage of the ATP Finals tournament. The Russian played in the “Red” group, where his rivals were his compatriot Daniil Medvedev, the Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz and the German Alexander Zverev. In the match against Alcaraz, Andrei broke his knee with his racket and also cried on the court.


@sportru