An \u201cexhausted\u201d Andrey Rublev has conducted his first interview since reaching Indian Wells via an elongated trip from Dubai, amid ongoing conflict in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
World No 17 Rublev<\/a> was in action at the Dubai Tennis Championships last week, with the Russian reaching the semi-final of the ATP 500 event before tasting defeat to Tallon Griekspoor.<\/p>\n However, the outbreak of conflict in the region saw flights in the United Arab Emirates grounded from last Saturday, with Rublev, Daniil Medvedev, and Karen Khachanov among a handful of ATP players and staff forced to stay put in the country<\/a>.<\/p>\n With action in Indian Wells, the opening Masters 1000 event of the season, underway this week, the trio were forced into a long journey to safely reach California<\/a>.<\/p>\n After delays, all three of Rublev, Medvedev<\/a>, and Khachanov<\/a> made journeys via car to reach Oman, before taking a private jet to Turkey, and then ultimately heading to Indian Wells.<\/p>\n Rublev arrived in California on Wednesday night and, in an interview with Sofya Tartakova of Bolshe<\/em><\/a>, the 28-year-old revealed he was in a good mood despite an arduous journey.<\/p>\n He said (translated from Russian): \u201cMy mood is fine, I\u2019m just really worn out.<\/p>\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t an easy trip, so long with lots of things happening. So I\u2019m exhausted, plus the jetlag. But in general, everything\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n Novak Djokovic reveals what he proved at Australian Open in message to Indian Wells rivals<\/a><\/p>\n Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner\u2019s predicted pathways to blockbuster Indian Wells clash<\/a><\/p>\n He added: \u201cIt was just an unusual travel experience. Learned a lot of new things, like how to cross the border to Oman. I just tried to treat it like a trip.\u201d<\/p>\n Medvedev had spoken to Bolshe<\/em> earlier in the same evening<\/a>, and revealed that he had remained calm despite the escalating situation.<\/p>\n Rublev revealed that he also did not try to panic too much about the situation, and instead tried to focus on his plans to reach the Masters 1000 event.<\/p>\n \u201cSame for me \u2014 I visited a banya, went to some restaurants. I took it calmly,\u201d commented the Russian.<\/p>\n \u201cI was mostly thinking about how to make it to Indian Wells, what could be done to get there on time. Overall, I felt pretty normal. Why worry about things you can\u2019t control?\u201d<\/p>\n Much like Medvedev and Khachanov, Rublev has the luxury of being a seeded player in the men\u2019s singles draw in Indian Wells \u2014 and therefore received a bye in the opening round.<\/p>\n The 17th seed will face a tough opening test against world No 38 Gabriel Diallo, with the Canadian beating Mattia Bellucci in the opening round.<\/p>\n Rublev and Diallo are set to do battle on Friday, and despite the tight turnaround between his arrival in California and the start of his campaign, the former world No 5 is not changing his pre-match approach.<\/p>\n \u201cDoesn\u2019t matter. We work with what we\u2019ve got. You never know.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can come a week early, prepare super well, and lose the first match. Or, arrive a week before and win \u2014 or arrive the day before and win the tournament, or arrive a day before and lose in the first round.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, you just do what you have to do, and that\u2019s it.\u201d<\/p>\n Want more from Tennis365? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/strong><\/p>\n Read Next<\/strong>: Indian Wells withdrawal list: 19 players out as Medvedev, Rublev & Khachanov\u2019s presence confirmed<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The post Andrey Rublev speaks out in first interview since escaping Dubai to reach Indian Wells<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An \u201cexhausted\u201d Andrey Rublev has conducted his first interview since reaching Indian Wells via an elongated trip from Dubai, amid ongoing conflict in the Middle East. World No 17 Rublev was in action at the Dubai Tennis Championships last week, with the Russian reaching the semi-final of the ATP 500 event before tasting defeat to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1831\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Tennis News<\/h2>\n