DOHA, February 18. /TASS/. Russian tennis star Andrey Rublev won his Round 1 match at the 2025 Qatar Open tennis tournament in Doha on Tuesday in straight sets.
In a match that lasted just over an hour, the fifth-seeded Rublev defeated Alexander Bublik from Kazakhstan 6-3; 6-4. The Russian, who is playing as a neutral athlete at the tournament, will now face off in the next round against unseeded Portuguese player Nuno Borges.
The 27-year-old Rublev is currently ranked 10th in the ATP Rankings list. He has won 16 career ATP singles tournament titles and four more in men’s doubles. Rublev has also appeared in numerous Grand Slam tournaments, albeit never advancing beyond the quarterfinals.
He 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 2025 Qatar Open Tennis tournament is a WTA-ranked 500 competition on the organization’s calendar which takes place at the Khalifa International Tennis and Squash complex in Doha, Qatar, between February 17 and 22. The tournament is played on outdoor hard courts. Russia’s Karen Khachanov is the reigning champion.
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 canceling 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 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.