Andrej Rublev recently announced that Russian tennis legend Marat Safin is a part of his coaching staff moving forward. Rublev is seeded 4th at the ATP 500 Barcelona Open and he will square off with Jesper De Jong in the opening round of the event. They have never faced each other earlier on the ATP tour.
The announcement came just before Monte Carlo started. Marat Safin will join Fernando Vicente on the coaching staff of his compatriot Andrej Rublev. Rublev said in a statement that he hopes that the cooperation with Safin will last long. Ruvlev also said the following: “Marat has been an inspiration for me since i was A little kid”.
Safin has been away from tennis for a long time and hopefully he will enjoy his role within the Rublev team. The former world number one and two time Grand Slam Champion will likely be helpful to Rublev with his experience. Andrej is getting a lot of attention (perhaps too much) for his mood swings on the court on occasions. Sometimes we seem to forget how good of a player he really is.
The 27 year old Russian is ranked at the 8th position in the world at the moment. Rublev has won one title already this season. It was at the ATP 250 Doha were he got the better of Jack Draper in the final. He also took out De Minaur in the QF. He started out his 2025 campaign in Hong Kong with an early exit. He lost straight away at the Australian Open to the Brazilian wonderkid Fonseca in straight sets. Rublev got to the semis in Montpellier, the QF in Rotterdam, the title in Doha. Lost In the first round in Dubai, Andrej lost in the round of 64 at Indian Wells. At the ATP 1000 Miami Masters the exact same thing happened. Rublev reached the round of 16 at the ATP 1000 Rolex Masters in Monte Carlo last week. In total Rublev has won ten and lost eight matches on the tour in the 2025 season.
De Jong from the Netherlands is ranked at the 94th spot in the world at the moment. That is his highest ever. The 24 year old from Haarlem has won four and lost two matches on the main tour so far in 2025. De Jong spends time on both of the tours. Jesper was not able to qualify for the Australian Open at the start of the year. He had a great week in Montpellier where he reached the semis. De Jong got to the second round in Marrakech. The best result for Jesper on the challenger tour in 2025 was the final berth in Murcia (clay). De Jong likes to use his drop shot a loton clay and Rublev needs to be prepared for it.
