World No. 62 Alexander Bublik has explained the reasons behind his recent ranking decline. Today, he reached the fourth round of Roland Garros for the first time in his career.
When asked if he believed the “shake-up” of seeing his ranking drop was necessary to reach a new level, and whether he couldn`t mentally adjust while still in the Top 50:
“I don`t know,” Bublik responded. “If you were to ask me what advice I`d give myself from last year`s Wimbledon, I`d say to take a break for a few weeks. Because I climbed to world No. 17, which was a great success. I never thought I`d even enter the Top 20, but I became 17th.”
He continued, “Then I decided I needed to do this and that, train more, work on nutrition, stop drinking and partying. I felt I needed to become more of a professional soldier now that we`re in this game. Everyone else is like robots, just crazy guys with crazy results.”
“So I did that. Unfortunately, to be honest, my slump wasn`t due to a lack of motivation or training. On the contrary, I just burned out because I was waiting for the results to come. I was 17th in the world, I was watching the points, the race. And I thought, okay, if I do what I`m capable of, if I train harder, hit my forehand better, it will come. But it didn`t happen, and then I asked myself: why am I sacrificing so much? What for?”
“Then everything reversed. I became world No. 80. My coach suggested going to Las Vegas between the Indian Wells Masters and a Challenger in Phoenix. He said, `If you keep playing like this, we`ll just disappear from tennis by Wimbledon,` because that`s where all my points were from – after that, I only earned about 50 points. I replied, `Okay, let`s go to Las Vegas.` We relaxed, we changed my racquet. We did a lot of things. I said, `Okay, if it works, it works. If not, thank you very much, tennis.` And ultimately, it worked out,” Bublik stated in the press conference.
Rupert Hartwell 
Adrian Whitmore