Andrey Rublev might have had a stellar season on the Tour but he believes there is still plenty of room for improvement in his game. 

The 26-year-old is currently at a ranking high of No.5 in the world and won his Maiden Masters 1000 title earlier this year in Monte Carlo. This season he also won another title in Bastad and reached the quarter-finals in three out of four Grand Slam tournaments played. His overall win-loss record for 2023 is 56-26. 

“This year I have improved a lot in my backhand. This is something that I feel very good about, that it has become better,” Rublev told Championat.
“And I increased my movement. Now I move around the court much faster than at the beginning of the year. I began to maintain pace and speed much better, and began to defend better.”

Despite his success, the Russian admits that certain parts of his game are weaker compared to his peers in the world’s top 10. One of the most notable areas concerns his mentality during matches. At the ATP Finals Rublev lost his cool multiple times and at one stage was seen smashing his knee with his racket out of frustration. He has also lost his composure at other tournaments played such as the Shanghai Masters where he yelled at a person in the photographer area for moving during a crucial moment of his final clash with Hubert Hurkacz which he ended up losing in a final set tiebreak. 

Although Rublev insists that it isn’t just his mentality that he needs to work on during the off-season.  

“What needs to be improved? A ton of everything,” he stated. 
“The main thing, of course, is psychology. This is what I miss the most compared to Novak Djokovic, Daniil Medvedev, Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner. They are much more stable than me psychologically.’
“As for the technical aspects, the movement can be further improved. And we (my team) need to improve my second serve. This component clearly stands out to me from a bad point of view compared to everyone else in the top 10. Everyone serves the second one stronger than me.”

According to the ATP’s Infosys Stats, Rublev is currently in 39th place for most second service points won on the Tour based on matches played within the past 52 weeks. However, his success rate of 51.4% is higher than both Daniil Medvedev and Alexander Zverev. Overall, he has a serve rating of 278.3 which is the 19th highest. A player’s serve rating is calculated by adding the four service metrics percentages together plus the average number of aces per match and then subtracting the average number of double faults per match.

“Access to the net needs to be improved. If, with my game, I will be able to finish off not only simple balls but be able to unexpectedly reach the net – this will give me a big advantage.” He continued.
“Even if I only improve my psychology and second serve, it will be a completely different tennis.”

Rublev has played 15 matches against top 10 players this season but has only won five of them. 

Rafael Nadal will head to the Middle East during the off-season ahead of his scheduled return to competitive tennis in Australia next year, according to a media report. 

Pedro Fullana, who is a Mallorcan-based journalist for La Cadena SER, has obtained information about how the former world No.1 plans to start his comeback. Nadal is reportedly set to travel to Kuwait where he has his own academy and continue training there before returning home to Spain for Christmas. 

Then the plan is that Nadal will head to Australia to play a warm-up event but it hasn’t been confirmed as to what one that will be. During the first week of the 2024 season, Brisbane will hold an ATP 250 tournament which will feature the likes of Hoger Rune and Andy Murray. The week after two more 250 events are being held in Adelaide and Auckland, New Zealand. 

Should all go to plan, the 22-time Grand Slam winner will then play at the Australian Open which he won in 2009 and 2022. It will be his 19th main draw appearance at Melbourne Park where he has won 77 out of 93 matches played so far in his career.

Whilst this is the likely plan for Nadal’s return, it is yet to be officially confirmed by either him or a member of his team. The 36-year-old hasn’t played a Tour match since his second round defeat at the Australian Open in January due to a left hip injury. He was originally expecting to take an eight-week break but the recovery didn’t go to plan and he ended up having arthroscopic surgery. 

Earlier this month, Nadal told reporters in Barcelona that his recovery was progressing well and confirmed his intention to play again amid speculation over his future in the sport. 

“I’m well, training, and happy,” atptour.com quoted Nadal as saying on November 15th. “I’m at a good stage of my life. Until now I didn’t know if I would play tennis again someday, and now I genuinely believe I will. I’m still not ready to say when, but I’m able to train increasingly longer, and the progress is good.”

Nadal has won 92 ATP titles and earned more than $134M in prize money so far in his career. He is the first male player to have completed a career Grand Slam twice and win 2 Olympic gold medals. 

The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) says they do not support an event taking place in Russia this weekend but will not take any action against those participating. 

The Trophies of North Palmyra is an international team exhibition event that is being held across three days between December 1-3 in Saint Petersburg. It has a similar concept to that of the Laver Cup with two teams facing off against each other with the captains being Svetlana Kuznetsova and Nikolay Davydenko. Five out of the 13 participants are Russian players, including Karen Khachanov and Veronika Kudermetova. The international attendees are Roberto Bautista Agut, Alexander Bublik, Yulia Putintseva, Jasmine Paolini, Viktoriya Tomova, Dusan Lajovic, Laslo Djere and Adrian Mannarino. 

Currently, Tour-level events are banned from being held in Russia as a result of the war in Ukraine which began on February 24th. More than 10,000 civilians have been killed in Ukraine since Russia launched their invasion, according to the U.N. Human Rights Office. The country is also currently suspended from playing in team events by the ITF. 

Due to the ongoing conflict, the decision of some players to play in Russia has drawn criticism. However, the WTA has confirmed in an email to Reuters that they will be taking no action against their players. 

“This event is not affiliated with the WTA nor is the WTA supportive of the event being held,” the WTA stated.
“Players compete on the WTA Tour as independent contractors and, at their discretion, have the ability to participate in an exhibition without penalty during the off-season.”

Reuters also tried to contact the ATP but they didn’t receive a response on the matter. Although it is expected that they will take a similar stance to that of the WTA. 

The event is being sponsored by the Russian energy giant Gazprom. Some of its board members have been sanctioned by international governments due to the war.

“Is it okay to promote sanctioned companies?” World No.31 Lesia Tsurenko wrote on social media platform X, tagging both the ATP and WTA in it. 

There are yet to be any comments from those taking part in the event. According to a press release (in Russian only), the schedule of the exhibition will be the following:-

• December 1 (Friday) – Junior matches, the opening of the tournament and two matches of professionals. 
• December 2 (Saturday) – junior final, four singles matches and a legends match. 
• December 3 (Sunday) – final for juniors, five matches of the team tournament and closing ceremony 

Details about financial incentives on offer have not been made public.