Andrey Rublev will retain the ranking points and prize money earned at the Dubai Tennis Championships, despite getting defaulted from the tournament for unsportsmanlike conduct, after an appeal to the ATP.
Rublev was defaulted by the chair umpire after a Russian-speaking official appeared to accuse him of using an obscenity, while he yelled at the line judge during his semi-final with Kazakhstan’s Alexander Bublik on Friday.
Most of the deciding set was dominated by arguments between Bublik and chair umpire Miriam Bley over the timing of the introduction of new balls.
However, it was Rublev who lost his cool at 6-7 (4/7), 7-6 (7/5), 6-5, yelling towards a line umpire, and getting accused by a different one that the second seed swore at his colleague in Russian.
Rublev insisted he was speaking in English and that he did not use any foul language but the line umpire stuck to his story and the 26-year-old was defaulted from the match.
Bublik tried to convince Bley and ATP supervisor Roland Herfel to continue play but the call was made and the match was over.
“The appeals committee concluded that, beyond forfeiting the match, customary penalties associated with a default – namely loss of rankings points and prize money for the entire tournament – would be disproportionate in this case,” the ATP said in a statement on Monday.
Rublev’s fine of $36,400 for the code violation remains in place after the appeal, which took into consideration testimonies from players and officials and a review of video and audio material.
Rublev found sympathy from Spanish player Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, a quarter-finalist in Dubai, who described the sanction as “shameful”.
“Very unfair that they disqualify Rublev without first ensuring that what the line judge understood is correct,” the world number 24 wrote in X.
“That rule should be reviewed and changed. Shameful. We need VAR in tennis.”
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