"I promise I'll learn from this" - Andrey Rublev breaks silence on controversial Dubai disqualification, urges ATP to reconsider default rule

Andrey Rublev has finally reacted to his outburst at the Dubai Tennis Championships after ATP overturned the decision to take away the ranking points and prize money earned by the Russian during the tournament.

Rublev was defaulted in his semi-final match at the Dubai Tennis Championships after he exploded at a line judge. He was also supposed to lose all his prize money and ranking points earned during the event.

However, there is a silver lining for the Russian as his appeal was a partial success. The ATP has reinstated the ranking points and prize money he earned during the week. Rublev though will be fined $36,400 for his behavior.

Andrey Rublev finally broke his silence on the controversy with a long message on his social media where he thanked the ATP for overturning the decision. He also asked the ATP to have a closer look at the rules and let the players have a video review so that no match official can decide the outcome of a match without sufficient evidence which can lead to other players suffering the same fate as he did.

"I want to thank the appeal committee for approving my appeal and changing course on the ATPs initial decision of disqualifying me from the Dubai semifinal and taking away the rankings points and prize money I earned last week. I hope that in the future, the ATP will take a closer look at this rule and make changes to it, so that an official can’t force a match outcome without having clear evidence and not letting the player have a video review."

The Russian went on to thank everyone who supported him during this period and said he would learn from this experience to become a better player and person.

"While I am disappointed that I wasn’t able to finish my semifinal in Dubai, I am grateful for all the support I had from you the last two days, I received a lot of messages. Thank you to everyone supporting me, I promise I will learn from this and will try to be a better player and better person."

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The Andrey Rublev Dubai controversy in detail

Andrey Rublev

In his semi-final match against Alexander Bublik at the Dubai Tennis Championships, Andrey Rublev felt that a ball returned by the Kazakh had landed out. However, there was no call by the line judge and he ended up losing the point. This angered the World No. 5 who exploded at the line judge.

A few moments later an official came to Rublev with another line judge, who spoke Russian. He claimed that Rublev had called the line judge a 'f***ing moron' in Russian. Rublev's constant pleas that he spoke in English and not Russian fell on deaf ears as he was defaulted from the match.