Andrey Rublev successfully appealed his recent default from the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, meaning he will receive his prize money and ranking points from the tournament.
Obviously nothing can be done about the outcome of the match–Rublev was defaulted at 5-6 in the third set of his semifinal against Alexander Bublik–or the overall tournament, but the fifth-ranked Russian gets to keep $157,755 and 200 ranking points.
Rublev shouted in the face of a linesman following the final point of Bublik’s service game at 5-5. What was said remains unclear, but the No. 2 seed was unhappy with a non-call on his baseline during a rally. A different Russian-speaking linesman then went to the chair umpire and offered his opinion of what had been said. After that the tournament supervisor chatted with the chair umpire and Rublev was defaulted.
In normal default circumstances on the ATP and WTA Tours, a player loses all of his or her ranking points and prize money. But that won’t be the case with Rublev since his appeal was successful. His $36,400 fine for unsportsmanlike conduct, though, still stands.
The ATP ruled that the “customary penalties associated with a default…would be disproportionate in this case…. The appeal process took into consideration testimonies from the player, officials, as well as a review of all available video and audio materials.”
Rublev now heads to the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, where he is the fifth seed behind Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, and Daniil Medvedev.
thoughts?
I think he has learned his lesson, though; he won’t yell in the face of the linesman again. We’ve all been there. This is more a reflection of the world we live in rather than isolated to Rublev, even though each person’s circumstances are unique in bringing about these outcomes.
Like many people, Rublev really gets wound up and loses a sense of reality. The irony is that he was dealing with the same type of injustice that brought about his behavior in the first place, with human ignorance being the root cause of the problem..
We still have a bit to go before we reach the midpoint between the apes we evolved from and where we should be as a species.
Bottom line, it’s the frustrations of becoming a career quarter finalist bubbling over.
I get it, to an extent – but I would not want to be his coach.
You all missed the point, he was falsely accused by “Russian speaking” line judge and supervisor refused to check the situation on video when Rublev begged him to do so swearing that he didn’t say what “Russian speaking” dude claimed he said, that’s why his appeal was successful, since they checked the video, something supervisor refused to do, and found he didn’t say what he was accused of saying.
Until that moment Rublev didn’t have any warning in the match so disqualification wasn’t warranted, only warning for yelling to the face of line judge was sufficient, that’s why the fine stands.
If they were disqualifying players for dropping F-bombs Rodick snd Murray wouldn’t finish quite a few matches, so wouldn’t Nole…if he had “Serbian speaking” line judge.