Andrey Rublev turns to Halle's peaceful setting and hotel sauna for mental reset

HALLE, Germany—If Wimbledon is the storm, Halle is the calm that comes before it. At least for Andrey Rublev.

Peace and quiet: it’s a state of being we all seek from time to time. After spending weeks in major cities like Madrid, Rome and Paris, Rublev finds refuge in the ambiance of the Terra Wortmann Open. Pastures with cows grazing and a mountain backdrop replace honking horns and packed streets filled by sounds of strangers.

“For me it's a nice moment to a bit rest mentally before I go to London. A big city full of people, full of something happening always,” Rublev shares with TENNIS.com. “Here, it's a nice place to stay calm for a week, focus only on tennis, to recover. It’s really quiet, really peaceful here.”

Beyond the tranquility, there’s another selling point of the ATP 500 for the 26-year-old.

“The sauna at the hotel is nice.”

Today, Rublev is a 16-time ATP champion with two Masters 1000 titles. He has remained inside the Top 10 since he first entered the elite group on October 12, 2020 and qualified at the last four editions of the Nitto ATP Finals. Even so, Rublev finds it difficult to accept how much time has elapsed since he first turned up to the long-running northwest Germany tour stop when he was an 18-year-old trying to find his way.

“It doesn't feel like it at all. Looks like it's been just last year,” he says. “But it's tough to realize that it's been eight years because in my head, eight years is a big number that means you have a lot of changes in life, or in general. For the moment, body wise, I feel like eight years ago.”

In 2023, Rublev put a disappointing French Open exit behind him when he reached his second final in three years at OWL Arena. His time at Roland Garros this year once again ended earlier than hoped when the world No. 6 lost to Matteo Arnaldi in the third round. Rublev took two days off before putting in the hard yards for the surface switch.

“We start to practice full because we decided that it'll be the only short 10 days that we can work before it will be grass season,” he explains. “Because on grass, I will not have much time to do good practices. These days I can really focus to build a little bit of game, so I was playing every day and then I came here.”

Rublev holds a career 19-8 mark on grass. On Tuesday, the No. 4 seed opens his campaign against Marcos Giron.