Andrey Rublev is quite known for his semi-regular outburst, which usually ends with a bloody knee and he finally addressed why the knee is the target of his rage.
Nobody can dispute that Rublev approaches tennis with a lot of passion because he showed it. He wears his emotions on his sleeve while on the court, especially. While it's not specific to Rublev, he has a rather signature way of dealing with his anger.
While most players usually unleash their anger on the court or the racquet, Rublev tends to make himself a target. The knees, in particular, carry the brunt of the damage most of the time, but not always. Just recently, he bloodied his knee at the ATP Finals, so much so that even Nick Kyrgios called it crazy.
In a recent interview with Championat, Rublev addressed something that usually gives people a lot of pause when it happens. Rublev named two reasons why the knees, so let's see what he said.
Why knees? There are two reasons for this. Firstly, because of the rackets. I'm very selective - it's hard for me to find rackets that I like. Even if they are the same, out of 15 rackets only two or three will suit me. Because of this, I feel sorry for hitting them on the court again, because if they break, then I have to look for them again. And that can take a long time, so I hit the knees and not the court.
You could see a logic in that but he'll need those knees for a long career and a healthy life after and they're pretty rare too. The second reason he named is far more important because he used the word resentment.
Secondly, sometimes I have such strong resentment towards myself that I no longer know what else to do to give myself a sign that it’s time to wake up. At such moments, I kind of try to tell myself, ‘Wake up! Half the match has already passed and you haven’t done anything.’
That's not a particularly healthy view to have but it's something Rublev is willing to work on. He'll need to work on it because nobody wants to see that, and it doesn't really serve anything. Channeling your emotions properly is extremely hard but well worth it, especially if you're an athlete.
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