World No. 8 Andrey Rublev answered questions from journalists at a press conference before the Madrid Masters.
“It`s great to be back in Madrid. I really like this place. I like the city and everything around the tennis club. And yes, returning is a pleasant feeling with many amazing memories from last year and all previous years. So, for now, I`m just looking forward to enjoying it. And we`ll see closer to the matches.”
– Andrey, what can you say about working with Marat Safin?
“So far, I can`t say much because we`ve only been working for two weeks, and that`s a very short time to say anything. But I like everything, including what he says. I like everything he`s trying to show me, so we`ll see how it goes.”
– New ITIA rules related to doping control were published this week. How do you live every day under such pressure when you constantly have to be under close supervision?
“For me, it`s a very important and very scary topic. Because I need, like most players, first of all, to write a program every day of where we will be every hour, so we always need to remember that we need to continue to do this. If you don`t do it, at some point you forget, or, let`s say, they [doping officers] came to where you were not, this is already one miss. And if you have three misses, you are disqualified for two years. And this, in my opinion, is unfair, and it makes us players very tense because of such things, because, for example, yesterday I completely forgot to tell them that I was in Madrid, and I was lucky that no one came. But it was on the verge, I was just lucky. And in general, in recent years, I have become afraid to take anything at all.”
“If I feel unwell or something like that, I don`t take anything just in case. But I`m lucky that I have the opportunity to ask a doctor if this medicine can be taken. But many players do not have this opportunity, and then they go to the pharmacy, ask for something for a temperature or something like that, and they are given medicine. They take it, and maybe they find doping in them, and then they are disqualified.”
