A 6-4, 6-1, 6-1 defeat and then Bublik left in this Australian Open tennis tournament. The whimsical 10th player in the world was dominated head and shoulders by his opponent Alex De Minaur this Sunday in Melbourne. The Kazakhstani also had to face the public who he considers much “easier” to manage than the French.
The quarter-finalist at Roland Garros last year was responding to a journalist who asked him if he had been bothered by the encouragement from the Rod Laver Arena crowd for their local player.
“You should try a match against a Frenchman at Bercy” he retorted in reference to the Masters 1000 in Paris before his move to Paris La Défense Arena in 2025. “I think there is nothing that surpasses that. It’s impossible to be more hated than when facing a Frenchman at Bercy,” he said, emphasizing that the public was more hostile there than at Roland-Garros.
“When you face a Frenchman in France and you miss your first serve, the public starts applauding and shouting, telling you to make a double fault,” he illustrated. Against De Minaur, “the crowd was absolutely great. It was a great experience, I enjoyed it and I didn’t feel like a player passionately hated” by the crowd, Bublik concluded.
