Russia’s tennis star
Daria Kasatkina has come to a defence
of her fellow countryman
Andrey Rublev after he was disqualified from the Dubai
Duty-Free Championship.
The 26-year-old was disqualified by the chair umpire in the
semifinal of the competition for allegedly insulting a young line judge in the third
and final set of the clash against Alexander Bublik.
The development did not go down well with Kasatkina who came
out to defence of Rublev in a feisty post on the social media platform X — previously
known as Twitter.
"So you can just disqualify a player, take away all his
points and money, without even checking the video? What a joke, yet another
confirmation that we need VAR in tennis and an electronic appeal system in all
tournaments," she wrote.
This is not the first time when Rublev’s temperament has
come into question. The result will be a major setback for the current world
number five who has now played in three quarterfinals and one semifinal in 2024
but has not managed to book his place in the all-important finale.
Before the
competition in Dubai, Rublev lost in the quarterfinal of the Australian Open to
Italy’s Jannik Sinner. He also lost in the last eight of the ATP competition in
Rotterdam to Alex de Minaur. In the Qatar Open, his journey once again
ended in the quarters as he lost to the Czech Republic’s Jakub Mensik.