Tennis is family affair for Rubley
BRADENTON - Andrey Rublev's athletic development as a 16-year-old that propelled him into a No. 31 ranking in the International Tennis Federation Boys 18s started as a toddler.
Marina Marenko, Rublev's mother and a tennis coach, recalls seeing her son, then 2-years-old, ignore a room full of toys and crawl toward a tennis racket and ball laying in a corner of the room.
"That's when he first decided to pick up a racket," she said through translation from his coach, Sergey Tarasevich. "He had a lot of toys, stuffed animals, a soccer ball, but his favorite toys were the racket and tennis ball."
Rublev, who is seeded 11th, won his first-round singles match in the Eddie Herr International Junior Tennis Championships on Monday over Nino Serdarusic of Croatia, 6-2, 6-1.
Then, in Tuesday's doubles action, the top-seeded team of Rublev-Alexander Zverev beat Alex Rybakov and Henrik Wiersholm, 6-2, 6-4 in a first-round match.
"I don't remember how I started playing tennis," Rublev said. "Since I was born, I was playing tennis."
"He was spending all the time on the court when she was working," Tarasevich said.
Having a mother who is a tennis coach gave Rublev a head start on the game.
"She taught me everything I know about the sport," Rublev said. "She taught me just to like the sport."
But his mother remains in the background now.
"He's done a lot by himself," she said. "The most important thing is what he's going through right now."
Rublev has had a string of impressive victories.
He won the singles title at the European 16-Under Championships in Moscow in July, which at the time was the biggest win of his junior career.
Last year, Rublev won the Orange Bowl Boys 16s title in Miami.
Last month, he won the 2013 IMG Academy Futures, a USTA Pro circuit event.
Moving up to the 18s for the Eddie Herr will be another formidable challenge.
"Under 18 is more difficult, because the older kids come from all over the world," Rublev said. "There's a lot of good players and it's tough to play well."
Tarasevich, who has been Rublev's coach for a year, thinks that Rublev, who just turned 16 in October, can win the tournament despite playing up a division.
"We're trying to have as big of ambition as possible," Tarasevich said.
"It means that I have to work more and I have to keep going," Rublev said. "I fight for every point and I try to show my best."
Sharapova sighting
As the tournament was going on, women's tennis star Maria Sharapova, a former Eddie Herr girls champion, was hitting balls on an adjacent court.