'He had no idea who we are' - Rublev describes 'embarrassing' meeting with One Direction member

| by Balasz Virag

Daniil Medvedev and Andrey Rublev ran into Louis Tomlinson of One Direction in Mexico and it was quite a moment for the tennis players.

One Direction used to be the biggest musical act in the world at their peak and the members still enjoy tremendous popularity around the world. Rublev and Medvedev ran into that during their short stay in Mexico completely unaware what the cause of the commotion in front of the hotel.

That was funny because when we were arriving, we saw so many people in front of the hotel. Daniil was like, ‘Why [are there] so many people here?’ Outside of the hotel were a thousand people, kids, girls. As soon as he came out you cannot imagine what was happening. I saw it only in YouTube videos. I’ve never seen something like this in my life.

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Rublev recognized Tomlinson as he knew of One Direction. He's a pretty big music head in general and probably would have pursued music as a profession if he didn't get into tennis but Medvedev was completely unaware of who Tomlinson was. Rublev grabbed a quick photo with Tomlinson as he explained what had happened.

It was a bit embarrassing, but it was still okay. In Daniil’s situation it was embarassing-embarassing because first of all the guy had no idea who we are and Daniil had no idea who he is. Me at least, I knew who he is, but Daniil had no idea. He was with 10 security [guards] around, he was in the middle and they were like, ‘Okay, fast, or something’. Even if they told him that we are athletes, that we are not that bad, not just random people.

Rublev grew up listening to One Direction and covered one of their songs when he was young. He actually learnt about what goes into making a song by doing that.

Actually, I had fun. I like music a lot and I never had at that moment [the] experience [of] how you do [a music video] from the beginning because all the instruments that were there, it’s not from the cover. The guys were playing with real instruments. Everything — piano, guitar, drums — were separated and then they put them all together. So for me it was a really nice experience to see how this process goes.”

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