"You feel a little more mentally tired" admits Andrey Rublev on two-week Madrid Open format with limited positives

Andrey Rublev will face off against Felix Auger-Aliassime in the final of the 2024 Madrid Open tomorrow afternoon at the Caja Magica in a period which has seen a lot of ups and downs for the Russian.

Rublev won through 6-4, 6-3 in the end, while Auger-Aliassime has mostly survived many different walkovers and has only played three matches. But for Rublev, it is a turning of a corner. He hopes the same can be said in terms of his outbursts which have become a running theme for the Russian despite his fairly mild mannered personality usually.

“That’s how this sport is. Here, we often have big tournaments. In other sports, you have to wait months for it. That way, if you don’t do well in a tournament, you don’t have to wait as long,” said the Russian.

“It’s true that tennis is very hard mentally, but every week we have a new opportunity. The seasons are long and it is normal for there to be ups and downs. The good thing about going down a lot is that you can go up easily.”

“I already had many warnings in my life where I saw that I should be calmer. Not only in Dubai, in other places I was already close to doing something not very good and I was lucky that everything went well,” added Rublev.

“I like to think that I am learning, not only from the warnings, but from myself, regardless of the situations I have been through.”

He also delved more into the two-week format for Masters 1000's and said there is only limited positives being more rest time within tournaments but that you end the tournament mentally tired. It will be straight through nearly for most players with Madrid, Rome and then Roland Garros within 7 weeks.

“There are things I like and things I don’t. I like the fact that I have a rest day and can recover a little physically for Sunday,” he assessed.

“Mentally it is harder, because you need to be at full strength for two weeks, not just one. At the end of the two weeks you feel a little more mentally tired than at the one week events. There are good and bad things.”