"A $36,000 fine and disqualification for the word moron": Andrey Rublev balks at default gate in Dubai

Andrey Rublev was part of major controversy in late February when he was disqualified from his clash against Alexander Bublik at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships for screaming in the face of a line judge.

Rublev appealed it though and saw his ranking points returned to him. But he has now hit out at the incident despite initially apologising and saying that he was going to learn from this and be better.

Speaking about the situation as a whole, he believes it was a bit much to be defaulted and receive a huge fine for the incident with in his belief other incidents being unpunished and his being blown out of proportion.

"A $36,000 fine and disqualification for the word 'moron'… based on all my career experience, it's too much. Although, if we take my behavior, then I am wrong and, of course, it is impermissible," he told Sports Express.

"If we analyze the situation as a whole, I think that this is too much. Because I've had much worse situations, and the punishments for them are much milder, warnings with a minimal fine."

"I didn't say half of the things that were written in the report. I was able to refute this because there was video evidence on which it is clear that I did not say the things that were attributed to me. Thanks to this, I got my rating points back."