The semifinal day at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, a tournament in the ATP 500 series with a prize fund of $3 million, was marked by a rare scandal for such high-level competitions. Last year’s finalist Andrey Rublev was disqualified in the third set of his match against Alexander Bublik from Kazakhstan for insulting a line judge. Last year’s champion Daniel Medvedev also failed to reach the final, losing in two sets to Frenchman Hugo Humbert.
It was not difficult to predict that Daniel Medvedev and Andrey Rublev would have a tough time repeating their success from last year when they played each other in the final of the Dubai tournament. Both Alexander Bublik and Hugo Humbert are strongest on fast hard courts, the type of surface used at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Stadium, which is best suited for players with a strong serve. Notably, both of them recently won titles at tournaments held indoors in French courts. Additionally, Bublik, who has known Rublev since childhood, has traditionally been a challenging opponent for him. Therefore, the balance that was established on the court after the tie-breaks in the first and second sets did not surprise anyone.
In the third set, as the Russian initially broke Bublik’s serve but then lost his own, the match seemed to be heading towards another tie-break, but an unexpected turn of events occurred when the score was 6-5 in favor of Bublik. After the last point was played in the eleventh game, Rublev, who had shown emotions throughout the match, shouted at the line judge, accusing him of making a mistake by calling Bublik’s shot out. Despite Rublev’s denial that he spoke to the line judge in Russian, a supervisor was called onto the court, and the video analysis of the incident led to Rublev’s disqualification. The noise from the crowd made it difficult to determine the exact words spoken by Rublev, but the word “debel” (a derogatory term in Russian) was clearly audible. Nevertheless, the tennis player’s punishment is likely to extend beyond just disqualification. If no additional decisions are made, he will be deprived of prize money amounting to $157,000 earned for reaching the semifinals, as well as 200 ranking points. As a result, on Monday, Rublev will drop out of the top five in the world rankings.
It is worth mentioning that disqualification as a penalty at major tournaments is usually imposed when players resort to physical aggression against officials. This was the case with David Nalbandian, who in 2012 at a tournament in London broke an advertising board with his foot, injuring a line judge, and with Novak Djokovic, who accidentally hit a line judge in the face with a ball at the US Open in 2020.
In the other semifinal between the fourth-ranked player in the world, Daniil Medvedev, and Hugo Humbert, there were fewer emotional outbursts, but it ended with the tournament favorite suffering a defeat. The 25-year-old French lefty, who currently holds a career-high 18th place in the ATP rankings, played a great match, combining a strong serve with active play from the baseline. A single break made by Humbert in the 12th game decided the outcome of the first set. In the beginning of the second set, he held serve against Medvedev, then broke him in the eighth game and ultimately won in less than two hours – 7:5, 6:3.
Both of Russia’s top players will now head to Indian Wells from Dubai, where the BNP Paribas Open, the first ATP 1000 tournament of the season, begins on Wednesday. Rublev was eliminated in the round of 16 last year, while Medvedev reached the final, where he lost to Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz.