Andrey Rublev provides major update on injury

Andrey Rublev has provided an update on his injury, which he sustained during a win against Portugal’s Nuno Borges in the first round fixture of the Monte-Carlo Masters on Monday.

The 2023 Monte Carlo Masters champion sparked doubts over his campaign after he took a medical timeout in the first set of the match as he struggled with his shoulder. After returning to the court, he clinched the set by 6-4.

The injury started showing its effects in the second set as Rublev lost it 1-6. But in the decisive set, with the help of “a horse dose of painkillers,” he dug deep to notch a 6-1 win.

The Russian called it a mental victory, saying he almost lost it, but painkillers worked on time.

“Obviously, I think today was exactly a mental victory for me, because in one moment, I thought, okay, it’s done. And then I was able to kind of, Okay, let’s just accept it, let’s just kind of trust, let’s trust, don’t start to put pictures now, ‘It’s over, I cannot play, maybe I need to pull out or something’. Let it be the way it should be,” Rublev said straight after the match.

“In the end, I think for sure it helped a lot. First of all, to be able to finish the first set, and then somehow to not pay attention that I am losing in the second. In the end, somehow, out of nowhere, I start to feel better. I was able to fight again, to play better, and in the end, I was able to win a match.”

Andrey Rublev then explained how the pain aggravated as time passed. He said that he had picked up the issue way before he first experienced it.

“To be honest, was a bit earlier, I just didn’t feel it. When I came back from the changeover at 4-3, when I went for a serve, I start to feel it a little bit. After the first serve that I did, I start to feel it much more, and after that long rally, is when it was completely done," Andrey Rublev said.

When he was asked about the situation of the body, he said it would take him five to six hours to know the extent of the injury.

"The body feeling? I don’t know, because I took a horse dose of painkillers and a medical [timeout]. So I don’t know, let’s see after five, six hours, or tomorrow, how is the body?” he revealed.

Rublev is set to face Belgium’s Zizou Bergs in the round of 32 on Tuesday.