World No. 8 Russian player Andrey Rublev shared his thoughts on reaching the second round of the ATP 500 clay court tournament in Barcelona, Spain.
In the first round, Rublev defeated 94th-ranked Jesper de Jong of the Netherlands with a score of 6-1, 6-3.
“Today I managed to play really aggressively from the start. I think it was my first match in a very, very long time when I felt truly good. We`ll see how it goes. But I liked how I performed today.”
– You need to be careful with qualifiers, right? Before you, he won both matches in two sets, you must be happy that you didn`t give him chances?
“Yes, I was really lucky that I was able to win in two sets. I know him well, he performed very well at indoor hard court tournaments, had really great matches, beat some players that even I lost to. Plus, his style is suitable for clay courts, and as you said, he came through qualifying, got used to the local conditions. As for me, I was expecting a really tough match. Therefore, from the very beginning, I tried to play really aggressively, to be 100% focused, and it worked out,” Rublev said in an on-court interview.
