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Andrey Rublev produced a stunning turnaround to beat compatriot Daniil Medvedev in their opening round-robin match at the 2022 ATP Finals in Turin. Rublev won 6-7(7), 6-3, 7-6(7) in a match riddled with missed opportunities and accounts of immense frustration.
Rublev in particular was quite miffed during the first set, where he failed to make use of the seven set points that came his way. The Russian is known to have anger outbursts in such instances and the same was observed during a hawk-eye-related argument in the opening set where he screamed at the umpire.
However, the 25-year-old made immediate amends to his behavior and was relatively poised throughout the rest of the match. When asked in the press conference if he has been working on controlling his temper and behavior, Rublev responded in the affirmative. He believes that working on this aspect is tough for him given that he has enormous amounts of emotions festering within himself.
"Of course, I want to believe that I'm working on that, then I'm stupid (laughter)," Andrey Rublev said.
"But, yeah, I'm trying to work on it. Obviously I think the match today shows that I have improvements. Is just not easy to do it like this. It takes time. Especially me, myself, I have so much fire inside, it's double tougher for me," he added.
Rublev pointed out how each player has their own set of weaknesses be it in their game or the mental side of things. He stressed that making wholesale changes to oneself takes time but insisted that he has been taking steps to work on his emotional outbursts.
"Every person have his own weaknesses. For some players it's tough to play aggressive. It takes time for them to learn how to play aggressive. Or opposite, to play more defense, to learn how to play defense. For some players it's tough to improve serve. For some players it's tough to improve mental part," Andrey Rublev continued.
"I guess I'm one of the ones who is tough to improve mental part, and it takes the most time. I mean, I'm improving it. I think the US Open show it already. Today match also show this. But it takes time."
"It's like the same with the forehand, backhand. If you have not good forehand or weak backhand, it takes really long time to improve it. I know it by myself because all my life I had really bad backhand, and it took me years to improve, to be able to be solid or hit sometimes winners. It took me years to improve. So it takes time," Rublev explained.
"Emotional-wise, for sure" - Andrey Rublev when asked if the win over Medvedev is his best against his compatriot so far
Andrey Rublev came into the match having lost four of his previous five matches against Daniil Medvedev. His only win against the 2021 US Open champion came in the semifinals of the 2021 Cincinnati Masters.
When asked during his presser if he would count Monday's win over Medvedev as his best performance against the latter, Rublev stated that he would consider it his best performance "emotional-wise," explaining how he endured a match full of rollercoaster moments.
"Let's say the best one emotional-wise, yes, because we had so much drama, especially after the first set, being 5-2 up, having seven set points, 6-2 in the tiebreak, not being able to win a set I think never happen to me that," Andrey Rublev said.
"Normally after something like that, I don't think I would win a match. Being able to turn around a match and win-win not only like second and third set, but win third set on a tiebreak 9-7, being against 6-3 up, this is something that never happen to me. So emotional-wise, for sure," he added.
