French tennis veteran Richard Gasquet believes one of the sports rising stars has what it takes to go all the way to win a major title in the near future.
The former top 10 player has hailed Andrey Rublev following the Russian’s surge in success on the Tour over the past year. Since the start of 2020, 23-year-old Rublev has won six ATP titles and reached the quarter-finals at three consecutive majors. His latest triumph was on Sunday when he defeated Marton Fucsovics to win his first trophy of the season in Rotterdam.
“It has been a great past year and a half. We will see if I can keep going, if I can keep this level of competing [and] being a Top 10 [player],” Rublev said afterwards.
Nicknamed the ‘ATP 500 King’ Rublev has now won 20 consecutive matches in that tournament category. To put that into perspective since 2009 only Andy Murray (21) and Roger Federer (28) have won more.
“He is one of the best players in the world. He can win a Grand slam very soon. He won many many tournaments. So It’s been great of course,” Gasquet told reporters on Monday.
Gasquet’s high praise of the world No.8 comes ahead of their first Tour meeting at the Qatar Open in Doha. In the first round of the tournament he dismissed Slovenia’s Blaž Rola 6-4, 6-4, to record his second Tour win of the season. He was forced to withdraw from last month’s Australian Open due to persistent discomfort in his foot.
“He won 4 or 5 of 500s so I know it will be tough for me but I have nothing to lose and I am sure I can do a great match and try to play the best I can,” Gasquet said of playing Rublev.
Gasquet, who will turn 35 in June, is marking his 20th season on the Tour this year. He is a three-time Grand Slam semi-finalist and has won 15 ATP titles so far in his career. Despite his age, the Frenchman has insisted that he has no plans of retiring anytime soon.
“I’m very happy to do another season on tour,” he said.
“I’m still very happy to practice, to be here and to play in great tournaments. That’s why I’m still practicing, still trying to win some matches. We will see what will happen in the future.”
Rublev is the third seed in Doha this week after Dominic Thiem and Roger Federer.
UPDATE: Since the publication of this article Richard Gasquet has withdrawn from the tournament due to injury.
