Andrey Rublev: Don’t think everything will be back to normal way of things by 2021

Russian tennis player Andrey Rubblev says he is satisfied with his fitness but not as confident as he would like due to the long break on the men's tour ahead of his first round match at the US Open in New York.

Speaking to the Russian news agency TASS, Rublev says, "I am satisfied with my fitness. But obviously, due to the very long break I am not as confident as I used to be since it is difficult to find my match rhythm. But this is normal as I need to get through it; to win one, two, or three matches in order to start feeling the rhythm and the game,."

Andrey Rublev says he does not think everything will be back to normal by 2021

The 22 year old Rublev lost his first match after the resumption of the circuit at the Western & Southern Open to Dan Evans but says he is happy to be back playing after so many months, especially since he thinks the pandemic may not be ending anytime soon. "It is not about a fear, because I simply understand that the current situation [with the coronavirus] will be around for a long time and we will have to play under such conditions not only during this US Open. I think that we [tennis players] will probably have to play under the same conditions at the beginning of next year as well. I don’t think that everything will be back to the normal way of things by 2021, therefore I don’t see what difference it will make if [we] start playing right now or in four months’ time. On the whole, I am tired of being idle and I want to play."

The Russian, a former French Open junior champion, is ranked a career high No. 14 in the world right now and has been to the quarter-finals of the US Open in 2017. He also reached the fourth round of the US Open last year and the Australian Open in January this year. 

Seeded No. 10 this year, Andrey Rublev takes on Frenchman Jeremy Chardy, ranked No. 60 in the world, in the first round at the US Open on Tuesday. The players are tied at 1-1 in career head-to-head, which includes a first round encounter at the 2018 US Open which Chardy had won in four sets.

from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/34ZTC4R