LE SCAN SPORT – The Russian claims to have been insulted by two individuals during his 16e midweek final against Ruusuvuori.
He may have publicly expressed himself for the end of the war, Andrey Rublev, Russian player, remains in the crosshairs of certain Ukrainian supporters or spectators, supporters of the country invaded since February 2022 by the Russian army. As he battled on the court against Finland’s Emil Ruusuvuori in the round of 16 on Thursday, two spectators in the stands a few meters from the player’s chair unfurled a Ukrainian flag. But the latter would have especially had inappropriate remarks against Rublev.
In any case, this is the version of the player who complained to the referee at the end of the match about the behavior of the two individuals. “It wasn’t a question of the flag. I told the referee right away, it’s not about the flag, they can put any flag they want, I completely understand the situation. It’s more that they started to say bad words and bad things to me“, had lamented, after the meeting, the seeded n ° 5 who had actually explained on the court to the referee to have absolutely nothing against the deployment of a Ukrainian flag.
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Rublev one of the first Russian players to denounce the war in Ukraine
Since February 2022, Rublev has repeatedly shown his opposition to the war. A few days after the Russian invasion, he had written “No war, please(no war, please) as he played in the Dubai tournament. “When it all started there, I started getting a lot of bad messages. I just wrote what I felt at that time. After, there were more than 22 million views. I think I was one of the first athletes in the world to speak out on this. In the end, all the messages I received, almost 100% of them, were only positive“, reacted the player affected by this wave of support.