Fresh off a brilliant title run in Doha last week, Andrey Rublev returns to Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, a tournament where he got a mid-match default for an outburst towards a line umpire during the semifinal last year. Rublev talked about his past mental health struggles ahead of his first-round match against Quentin Halys.
Rublev has gone through a lot in the last two years and has kept a frustrated figure many a time during his matches. His form has suffered but not more than what he seems to have suffered inside for a long time.
“I was kind of in a loop, lost with myself for a couple of years. Not finding a way, not understanding what to do. It sounds a bit dramatic or whatever, but like what’s the reason or purpose to live? Just completely lost with myself,” revealed Rublev.
“One thing is when it’s happening one month, two months, three months. But when it’s happening one year, two years, three years, four years, five, and it’s coming for many, many years, in one moment it’s like you cannot take it anymore. It’s like a pain in your hand that starts to grow more and more then it’s like you want to cut the arm and that’s it,” he added.
Rublev later revealed in the interview that he was taking anti-depressants. “One year of taking them I realised that it was not getting worse but something weird, I didn’t like the feeling I was having so I just stopped to take them.”
Marat Safin Helped Him Get Better
“With the help of Marat, he kind of made me understand myself or look at myself, and that was a bit of a restart from rock bottom and from there at least I was able little by little to start to move in a better direction and now I’m moving little by little in this better direction.
I’m not happy, I’m not in a good or bad place, but I’m not feeling any more stress, I’m not feeling anxious, I’m not having depression. I’m just neutral, not happy, not bad, but at least I found the base and that’s like a beginning,” said the 27-year-old.”
This takes guts to do as a professional in a sport where players don’t tend to talk about mental health and struggles. I hope this encourages other players to seek support if they need it and recognise that they’re not alone in struggling. It’s sad what Rublev has been going through, but at the same time, it’s great that he’s been able to take steps in the right direction. Kudos to Marat Safin for reaching out to him and helping him to make some of the necessary adjustments.
It sounds like he is being much more mature, being more honest with himself and trying to take more responsibility. It’s admirable that he talks about still not feeling happy, because often when celebrities talk about struggles with their mental health it’s in the past tense and everything is “fixed” which might not be the case most of the time.
I appreciate that he seems more tempered in how he sees his progress. In past interviews, he seemed to have a very black-or-white approach where if he had a good run, he was “cured” and when he was having bad results, it was back to square one. He must have felt incredibly discouraged when he thought his problems were over, only to have another breakdown a few weeks later. Hopefully, he will continue to take care of himself and find peace and happiness again.
Main Photo Credit: Mike Frey-USA TODAY Sports
