Rublev is the best answer to those who feared that Russian tennis players were a pro Putin commercial

In tennis it is definitely the year of the Russians. And not just because Daniil Medvedev remembered that he was still the one who shattered Novak Djokovic’s dream of completing the Grand Slam in 2021, and after an (almost) sabbatical year he resumed grinding victories that brought him to the top to the annual ranking. Yesterday Andrei Rublev he won the first Master 1000 of his career, in Montecarlo. He was facing Jannik Sinner’s “jumper”, the 19-year-old Norwegian Holger rune who enjoys making fun of the audience, throwing balls, making rude gestures, talking to his box when silence and concentration would be better. He, the Russian, was strangely impassive. Perhaps he knew that this is the year of the Russians (in the top 10 from January onwards there is also another compatriot: Karen Kachanov). In the principality he had also reached the final two years ago, then he lost badly against Tsitsipas. On Sunday, after conceding the first set, he sat there patiently, less hysterical than usually happens to him, because he recognized that he would have had an opportunity to ennoble his palmares and he was pretty greedy. Moreover, in a tennis lounge that everyone envies, given that the one at the Monte Carlo Country club is one of the oldest tournaments in the world, tradition spreads a la Wimbledon.

The fact is that what we will take with us from the final between the two is not so much the result – we would have preferred a different outcome, with Italy celebrating its South Tyrolean darling – but Rublev’s words. Someone who plays tennis well and also has the gift of saying non-trivial things, which have not been relegated to the Monegasque context. “I thank the public, because having support abroad, coming from the country where I come from, is very important“. Country where I come from, he said so. Russia, in fact, was not present in yesterday’s match. There were no flags, the anthem was not played, which on Sunday tennis has its weight, equals at least to Formula 1.

Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, tennis has chosen not to ostracize the Russians (apart from last year’s Wimbledon). But it has deprived them of the possibility of flaunting a nationalistic affiliation. Basically, when they play they are stateless, a solution that the Olympic committee has now also arrived at. And when they win, however, as is the case with Rublev, they don’t give up sending meaningful messages about the situation in their country. Last year in Dubai, after winning the tournament, Rublev, who still has family in Moscow, wrote on camera: “No War, please.” In Turin, at the ATP Finals, he reiterated the concept: “Peace, peace, peace”. Also in the Emirates, this year, he tweeted that “it’s not about tennis, it’s not about sports. It is about having peace all over the world. We have to support each other“. At the tournament in Marseille he played doubles with Denys Molchanov, Ukrainian tennis specialist in the discipline. He had already proposed Wimbledon, before the organizers banned the Russians.

It is true that Rublev’s compatriots have been much more timid in taking sides. But even Medvedev has said in the past that he is “close to what the Ukrainian colleagues are going through“. And to wish each other “peace in every corner of the world”. Now they are there watching everyone from above, they don’t hear the anthem of the country where they were born, they who have trained elsewhere for years, around the world. And they almost consider themselves citizens of the world. Anything but a pro-Putin commercial.