DUBAI, February 26. /TASS/. Russia’s Andrey Rublev has reached the semifinals of the 2026 Dubai Tennis Championships after defeating on Thursday Arthur Rinderknech from France.
In a match that lasted for 1 hour and 15 minutes, the 5th-seeded Rublev, who is playing under a neutral status at the tournament, outplayed his unseeded French opponent Rinderknech in straight sets 6-2; 6-4.
In the tournament’s semifinals, Rublev is set to face off against unseeded Tallon Griekspoor from the Netherlands, who outplayed in the quarterfinals 6th-seed Jakub Mensik from the Czech Republic 6-3; 3-6; 6-2.
The Greek player said commenting on his win over the Czech: "I thought I started off really, really well."
"Broke him with a good game from my side," the official ATP website quoted Griekspoor as saying. "I didn't really have any problems. It shifted a little bit in the second set, I didn't make as many first serves and he started to serve better."
"At the beginning of the third set, I had to up my game, serve better, which I really did. In the end I started to return really well, so I am very pleased with the win," Griekspoor added.
Rublev, 28, is currently ranked 18th in the ATP Rankings list. He has won 17 career ATP singles tournament titles and four more in men’s doubles. Rublev has never made it past the quarterfinals in any Grand Slam.
The Russian tennis player 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 2026 Dubai Tennis Championships is the ATP-500 event. It is played between February 23 and 28 on outdoor hard courts at the Aviation Club Tennis Centre in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and offers $3.3 million in prize money. Stefanos Tsitsipas from Greece is the tournament’s reigning champion.
Russian and Belarusian 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 moved to exclude 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 participating in the 2022 Davis Cup and the 2022 Billie Jean King Cup.