Right wrist injury sidelines Roland Garros junior champion from clay season
The 21-year-old Andrey Rublev has been one of the most prominent players from the NextGen group, winning the first Futures title just after turning 16 and lifting the Roland Garros junior crown in 2014, beating Jaume Munar in the final. The Moscow native cracked the top-200 at the age of 17 in the summer of 2015 and he needed two more years to make the next step and enter the elite 100 in June 2017. The best was yet to come in the following months, as Andrey claimed the first ATP title in Umag as a lucky loser and advanced into the quarter-final at the US Open where Rafael Nadal halted him in straight sets.
The Russian was the finalist of the first NextGen Masters in Milan, losing to Hyeon Chung in four sets and preparing himself for an even better run in 2018. The start of the previous season was very promising, losing in the final in Doha versus Gael Monfils and achieving a career-high ranking in February. Instead of moving forwards towards the top of the rankings, Andrey suffered a lower back stress fracture in April and was forced to stay away from the court for three months, never regaining his old form up to this point! He was the semi-finalist in Washington and that was his only good result by the end of 2018, struggling in the first four months of 2019 as well to drop out from the top-100 after a year and a half.
The youngster has shared more bad news with his fans, announcing he is forced to skip the rest of the clay season due to the right wrist injury and hoping to make a return during the grass swing. With only 365 points to defend in the rest of the year, Andrey should be able to keep himself in the top-100 and even make progress if he brings his best tennis after an injury, well-capable of delivering some good results on both clay and hard.
from Tennis World USA http://bit.ly/2J0YDjw
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