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QATAR EXXONMOBIL OPEN

January 3, 2018

Andrey Rublev

Doha, Qatar

A. RUBLEV/F. Verdasco

6-4, 3-6, 6-4

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. How does it feel after beating another Spanish player, another experienced Spanish player?
ANDREY RUBLEV: Of course I'm really happy. I'm happy to take my revenge because I lost against Fernando a few months ago. Also a tough match.

Today I win the tough match, so I'm really happy. And I'm really happy to be in quarterfinal, and I will try to do my best tomorrow.

Q. Could you talk about your quarterfinal match of tomorrow against Coric? You won against him already once. How will you play this game?
ANDREY RUBLEV: We'll see. I will try to play like always my style of the game. We'll see what's happen. For sure I think he will try to do something different tomorrow because last time his game wasn't work. So we'll see tomorrow. I think it's going to be good match. I hope we can show a good game. We will do our best tomorrow.

Q. Curious why you think you won. If you look at the raw stats, he won most of the categories yet you came out with the victory. What do you think you did well and when?
ANDREY RUBLEV: I think in third set, I was quite focused. I was quite calm. I was not showing emotions. I was trying to focus on the points and the rallies. That was the main part when I start to play a little bit better.

And then I win.

Q. How much of a factor was the wind? It was pretty windy conditions today. How did you cope with that? Do you feel being consistent it helped you, as opposed to Fernando?
ANDREY RUBLEV: I think don't that that was really consistence today. I think there was many things up and down, especially in the first two sets.

But the third set, I think both of us was really on a high Legal. Both of us was doing less easy mistakes. Both of us was doing more winners, more longer rallies.

In the end both of us was close. He had breakpoints, but I get little bit more lucky and then I win.

Q. What was going through your mind when you had the two breakpoints when you are serving for the match?
ANDREY RUBLEV: Yeah. He had two breakpoints -- you mean what was in my mind? Nothing. I was saying to myself, Come on, point by point, and we'll see what's happened. Because how many times it was happening that even me -- the guy was serving for the match with me and I had breakpoints and then I couldn't break him, and I was losing the matches. So it's often that in the last games always happening something, something that you never know. And that's it.

Q. In the absence of the top stars this year, there's so much talk about the big four and other players, they might fade in the coming years. There's a lot of focus on the youngsters. How much pressure does it put on you? Are you aware the sport is on you?
ANDREY RUBLEV: To be honest, it's not really pressure. I don't feel any pressure. I don't know, it's just -- I try to keep focus on my work, on my tennis, the things that I need to improve.

I'm happy that I can compete with top players and I'm happy that I can win good matches. But it's still a long, long way to be as really good player on a high level. So for the moment I'm really far from the top players and we'll see. Still a long way to get there and I will try to do my best.

Q. Can you just elaborate a bit about the competition and the Russian players. You have Medvedev and Khachanov. So just your relationship with them and your competition as well.
ANDREY RUBLEV: Even our relationship or -- we're good friends. Three of us were good friends. We used to play since we were kids under 12 until now we are still playing together. That's it. We were all from -- all the team matches, it was all of us together. We know each other since really, really young age and that's it.

Q. Is it easy to stay friends now?
ANDREY RUBLEV: Yeah. We're still friends. With Karen, we are together in Barcelona practicing. Daniil, we are always together when we're on tournaments. We're always talking together, having dinner together. So we still good friends.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, everybody.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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