Andy Roddick believes Andrey Rublev “went too far” during his “meltdown” at the Dubai Tennis Championship, although the American does not agree with the extra punishment that a player receives after being defaulted from a match.
World No 5 Rublev’s Dubai Tennis Championship semi-final match against Alexander Bublik came to a dramatic conclusion on Friday evening when the Russian was disqualified in the final set for unsportsmanlike conduct.
Trailing 6-5 in the deciding set, Rublev was accused of screaming in the face of a line judge after a call went against him.
There were long discussions with ATP supervisor Roland Herfel after the line judge claimed that Rublev swore at him in his native language.
The 26-year-old reportedly told the official “you are a f*****g moron”, but he protested his innocence telling Herfel “I did not say that. Are you serious? I was not even talking in Russian.”
Rublev was then told he would be defaulted and chair umpire Miriam Bley informed those in the stadium with many fans jeering the decision.
It has become a hotly debated topic with Nick Kyrgios saying it “did not warrant a default” while former world No 12 Daria Kasatkina called the disqualification “a joke”.
Former world No 1 Andy Roddick, though, believes Rublev should not have put himself in a situation where he gave officials an option to make a judgment call.
“Rublev can’t be that upset,” he said on Tennis Channel’s Served with Andy Roddick. “Whether he deserved it or he didn’t, he put himself in position for someone to be able to make a judgment call.”
Besides being defaulted from the match, Rublev also lost his prize money for the whole tournament as well as ranking points and Roddick feels that his semi-final offence should not have an impact on what he did in previous rounds.
Prize money for reaching the semi-final of the ATP 500 tournament was $157,755 while 180 ranking points were awarded to players.
“He has to now give up his prize money for the week, his ATP Ranking points for the week, drops him out of the Top 5 in the world,” Roddick added. “I don’t know what his meltdown on Friday has to do with his first, second, and third-round victories.
“He will have some of the blame because he went too far, but taking the money for the week, taking away the points because of a judgment call of some guy in a chair, that doesn’t make sense to me.”
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