Andrey Rublev won the biggest title of his career when he triumphed at the 2023 Monte-Carlo Masters and he was thankful for the support he received.
Despite the political tensions surrounding his home country of Russia, Rublev's fans stood by him, cheering him on throughout his nail-biting match against Holger Rune. The 25-year-old demonstrated resilience and determination, bouncing back from a set down and a 1-4 deficit in the decider to secure a 5-7, 6-2, 7-5 win, the most significant title of his career thus far.
The Russian acknowledges the tremendous support he has received from fans during this tumultuous time as "out of space." With Russia's war in Ukraine sparking global outrage, players like Rublev have faced restrictions on their participation in tournaments, including a ban from Wimbledon last year, which was reversed for this year.
"I’m very grateful because it is so difficult to get support, especially being from the country where I am from in a situation at the moment where I am. It’s double difficult. Just to get support from the crowd is really difficult. In these conditions, it is doubly difficult. To get this support is out of space."
Rublev also emphasized that he's happy to get the support especially because he knows that like anyone else, he's not perfect. He wants to keep improving as a person and share it also with other people along the way.
"First of all, I don't know if I'm good or not, because no one is perfect. Yeah, and I was saying -- no, I didn't say actually. I kind of wrote it one time and probably can say that in my life I was doing many mistakes, I was hurting many people, my family, the loved ones."
"Yeah, so I'm not good or I'm not bad, I guess, but to have this support, it means that for sure I can be a better person and I can work on it and I can improve and to try to share it with others."
Once again, he mentioned how thankful he is for every fan, and he'll surely have to thank many more fans soon as his fanbase is growing very fast thanks to his honest and outgoing personality.
"To have this support, I feel really, really grateful, because, I don't know, it's not easy to get support in general. To get a good support is really tough. I'm really grateful for this, that I'm having this support and I had this support this week, previous weeks, and I start to feel it more and more. I'm just grateful, and I want to thank every single person."