Alexander Bublik recently shared a hilarious interview on how he wanted to throw away a doubles match at Roland Garros two years ago.
Bublik, 26, is one of the ATP's ultimate show ponies due to his mercurial ball striking and improvised shots that sometimes draw the crowd's ire. Due to his unorthodox style of play, Bublik is sometimes mistaken for putting in less effort than his fellow players.
But having won three ATP titles and achieved a career-best ranking of No. 25 (and currently Kazakhstan's No.1 male player), it is hard to dispute that Bublik is a master of his craft. While criticism will always be magnified in the wake of his overzealous shotmaking, unpredictability is part of his personality.
In a recent interaction with ATP players Casper Ruud and Benoit Paire, during a dinner table chat at the UTS Grand Final in London, Bublik revealed about an occasion he wanted to lose a tennis doubles match on clay so that he could travel to a grass court tournament.
The match in question was the round of 16 of the 2021 French Open. Bublik partnered with Andrey Golubev at the event, and the pair completed a shock win in the previous round, beating Ivan Dodig and Filip Polasek. In the subsequent round, they faced former doubles No. 1 Wesley Koolhof and his Dutch partner Jean-Julien Rojer.
The Kazakh explains how he begged the Dutch pair to win the match so he could be granted his wish to travel to Stuttgart, but it was all in vain as Koolhof and Rojer made too many errors for Bublik's liking.
"Second round we had uh, I think Koolhoff. So, so good doubles like 13 combined like they were like three or four seed. So and then also Stuttgart's coming up, the grass, so I have to get ready, you know and I say Andrey (Golubev), okay basta! I don't want to play stop it, stop it, stop it."
"And then he said okay, so we just go on court, and we just play. We go there and we start winning. I said to my coach I mean if we win this match then there is my day off so I cannot go to Stutgart. I said come on and we playing against Koolhof and Rojer."
"On a changeover, we're winning a set. I said guys (to Koolhof and Rojer), can you please start playing? I have to go (to Stuttgart). I said please, can you beat us? Can you please beat us? I have to go, and so all match I was complaining. We lost the second set I say good job continue like this, then they start missing."
Funnily enough, Bublik and Golubev ended up making the final of the 2021 Roland Garros tournament - the only time the flamboyant Kazakh has appeared in a Grand Slam final stage - but lost to the experienced French pair of Nicolas Mahut and Pierre-Hugues Herbert.
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