First&Red ambassador Alexander Bublik spoke exclusively to our correspondent during the tennis player’s visit to Saint-Petersburg.

– How would you assess the first part of the season?

– I started very strongly, won a tournament straight away. A real year of new milestones: I broke into the top-10 for the first time, reached the fourth round in Australia for the first time, made the semi-finals in Rotterdam for the first time. I think that was the last indoor hard-court tournament where I had never even played a quarterfinal. At all the others, I had played either a quarterfinal or gone further. And I think now only Vienna and Basel remain, where I’ve only played quarterfinals. At the other indoor events I’ve played semi-finals, finals, or won the title. So we looked at it and decided that, for me, the first month and a half or two months were a season of discoveries. Then came a bit of a dip emotionally and physically.

Now, because I lost early in Miami, I had time to go home, reset, deal with things, close some issues that had been hanging over me for a long time, and start preparing for the clay season.

– Daniil Medvedev seems to have gone through some kind of reincarnation. How would you assess his performance? Danya beat Alcaraz, then played two tie-breaks against Sinner. Did he have a chance to beat Sinner? And what is this revival connected with in general?

– I always said, even when Danya was falling in the rankings, that he would be fine. The media simply exaggerated the scale of the problem. So the fact that Danya is returning to his true level was only a matter of time for me. And the fact that he beat Alcaraz is great. He had a chance to beat Sinner, he was up 4–0 in the tie-break… I believe Danya is a top-five player. Yes, everyone has downturns, there’s nothing terrible about that. He’s on his way back now, to where he deserves to be.

– So at Grand Slams, in individual matches, he can challenge Sinner or Alcaraz?

– I think so, yes. But I thought the same last year, even when he was losing. For me, both Danya and Andrey will sooner or later return to their level, provided there are no catastrophes — say, they suddenly don’t want to play at all, stop training and start skipping tournaments. Of course, these two guys will come back to where they belong.

– You are now preparing for the clay part of the season. What is the main difficulty?

– Footwork. Because the bounce is always uneven. You need to get under the ball more to generate bigger spin. On clay, rallies are longer, so you need to take the ball higher — at least in my understanding, you need to play more above the net, use more topspin, change direction more often. It’s a more tactical game, because you have the chance to use the court and use certain irregularities.

The drop shot works better on clay because the court can be softer and the bounce lower. In general, all clay courts are different. Hard courts are different too, of course, but more or less everywhere the bounce into the racket is understandable. It is simply faster or slower, higher or lower. On clay, anything can happen. Personally, I find them all different. On one court one thing works; on another court, something else does. The clay-court part of the season is one of the key stretches for me also because it gives me an understanding of where my game is.

And last year, when I started playing very well on clay, which surprised everyone, including me and my team, it was only the beginning. I started to feel that if I could play here, then I would be able to play on surfaces that suit me better too.

– Which clay tournament is your favourite?

– Listen, I love them all. Really. Even when I was losing on clay, I always loved it, because there’s always good weather, good cities, great tournaments, short flights, family nearby.

– Yes, all of Europe…

– Yes, yes, very convenient. I love all the tournaments. But Rome is probably a special tournament for me. Rome and Roland Garros.

– Sinner returned after a small dip…

– A dip? Was there a dip?

– Well, he lost two whole tournaments… Australia, Doha.

– Ah, that kind of dip [laughs]. Fine, let’s call it a dip.

– Right, a dip. Anyway, Sinner has now completed the Sunshine Double. He is the absolute dominator on hard courts now…

– I can’t quite say that. Alcaraz won the Grand Slam. Sinner needs to prove that [hard-court dominance — First&Red] at the US Open. But generally, since they are big players who compete for Grand Slams, it is hard to judge by which of them wins Masters events. In my view, for Carlos and Jannik, the main thing is the Slams. Carlos simply allows himself to smile, laugh, basically not care about all of it and go relax in Murcia, order a yacht. Jannik is more disciplined in that sense, so he doesn’t give himself the chance to lose early. He has had a couple of misfires, stumbled in the quarter-final or semi-final in Doha. And that’s it.

– Your court is being built in St Petersburg now. This is an important story for you. Would you like to come on some special date, open it, perhaps hold a masterclass, as you did in Moscow?

– Absolutely. The construction is a huge… For me, it is probably one of the most important events there will ever be. After all, this is the city where I was born and grew up. Opening a court, a space for people who can get to know my game, my legacy, let’s call it that — it’s great, it’s cool. It is a great honour for me that we found the opportunity, that I found partners with whom we can do this. It is important to me that people like it. I would really like to see children there, and for people to be able to play tennis. For me, the opening of this court is a colossal achievement. I think we will definitely organise a big masterclass.