MOSCOW, October 24. /TASS/. Russian tennis star Andrey Rublev cleared on Tuesday the opening round of the 2023 ATP Erste Bank Open tennis tournament in Austria’s Vienna.

In a match that lasted for one hour and 36 minutes, Rublev (3rd-seed) eased past his first round opponent Alexei Popyrin of Australia with straight sets win of 7-6 (7-5), 6-4.

Asked after the match how he managed to win the first set, Rublev replied "I don’t know."

"I was super lucky, it was my mistake. I was 4-2 up, I had an easy ball and I played it where he was and he passed me," the tournament’s official website quoted him as saying.

"From that moment the match started to change and he was 5-4 up with a break. Somehow I was able to stay there and I was able to turn it around," Rublev added.

The Russian, who is playing at the ATP tournaments under a neutral status, is set to play in the next round against Italy’s Matteo Arnaldi.

Speaking about his expectations about the upcoming encounter against Arnaldi, Rublev said: "Every match you feel you are one step closer. Every win, every day. The door is open and I see what is inside, but I am not inside the room yet."

Rublev, 26, is currently ranked 5th in the ATP World Rankings and has 14 ATP tournament titles to his name, two of those wins coming this year. He has also appeared in numerous Grand Slam tournaments, albeit never advancing beyond the quarterfinals.

Rublev took home the gold at the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo in mixed doubles (with teammate Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova) and also won the 2021 Davis Cup as part of the Russian national team.

The 2023 Erste Bank Open tennis tournament is part of the ATP 500 series and is played on indoor hard courts at the Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna between October 23 and 29 October. The tournament offers 2.409 million euros (some $2.6 million) in prize money up for grabs. The tournament’s reigning champion is Russia’s Daniil Medvedev.

Russian players’ neutral status at tennis tournaments

On February 28, 2022, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued recommendations to international sports federations to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from taking part in international tournaments, citing Moscow’s special military operation in Ukraine as the reason.

Following the IOC’s recommendations in late February 2022, the majority of global sports federations decided to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from all international sports tournaments.

The International Tennis Federation (ITF) ruled on March 1, 2022 to suspend the membership of the Russian and Belarusian national tennis federations while also cancelling all previously scheduled tennis tournaments in the two countries.

On March 14, 2022, the ITF also confirmed its prohibition on the Russian and Belarusian national tennis teams from taking part in the 2022 Davis Cup and 2022 Billie Jean King Cup.

However, the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) and the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) allowed tennis players from Russia and Belarus to continue participating in WTA and ATP tournaments, but only under a neutral status.