ALMATY – When Alexander Bublik arrived in Kazakhstan, one of the first things he said was that “the big moment would be becoming the first Kazakh champion here”. A week later, that dream has come to an abrupt end.
He picked up the injury at 5-4 in the third-set tie-break of yesterday’s match against Karen Khachanov and today, after losing the opening set of his semi-final against Medvedev, he was forced to retire at the Almaty Open.
“You play one of the best matches of your season, you beat a really tough opponent, one who is special to you, and you get injured on the last point of the third-set tie-break, after [two] and a half hours of play. Two minutes later you win the match, you’re in heaven, the crowd is chanting your name, you celebrate, but then you walk off court and realise that tomorrow you’ll probably need crutches to walk,” he said.
The Kazakh, who lost the first set 6-3 to Medvedev, took to the court on Saturday with his right knee strapped and could barely move during the points. He admitted in his press conference that he will probably miss the rest of the season.
“There are only two tournaments left, but with an injury like this we’re talking about three to six weeks. The end of the season is seriously in doubt. We’ll travel to Basel anyway, but I don’t think I’ll play. Injuries are part of the game. Sometimes we can play through them and other times, like today, we can’t. The good thing is that it happened at the end of the season. The bad thing is that it happened here in Almaty,” he said.
The world No. 19 gave details of how he spent the day before the semi-final and the advice the doctors gave him. He made it clear that he only went out to play because he was in Almaty.
“I was in hospital until five in the afternoon: ultrasound, MRI and different treatments that could at least help me get out on court, but when the MRI results came back, they said I shouldn’t play. We made the decision to play because I don’t come to Almaty or Kazakhstan very often. I knew people had come and were waiting for me, and I really wanted to go out there and give them my tennis and my affection, to give back what they give me. In my head, I thought I might be able to play a couple of games, and in the end I managed to play a set, even serve underarm and win a few points,” he explained.
