Rublev shrugs off travel fatigue to advance to Dubai Tennis Championships second round

Andrey Rublev knows all about the hectic schedule of the tennis circuit. Fresh from winning his ninth career title at the Marseille Open on Sunday, the Russian was on a plane to Dubai and arrived at 2am Tuesday morning. Later that evening he was back out on court, getting his Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships campaign underway.

If the second seed was feeling travel weary, he did a fine job hiding it. Facing a tough opening round opponent in Great Britain's world No 28 Dan Evans, Rublev produced a solid display to advance 6-4, 7-5 in 97 minutes. It was a seemingly confident display by Rublev but he insisted it was anything but.

"I was really afraid I had no chance to win," said the world No 7, who takes on South Korea's Soonwoo Kwon in the second round. "I didn't want to think about it, because it's like 'he just won a title and already he lost in the first round; he's not in the right mood.'

"I did a really long warmup today. I practiced for one hour and a half, which is not normal. I was just trying to adapt as much as I can.

"I didn't start fast, but in the end somehow the match was quite good. There were some good rallies, many good points. I won the match and now I'm really happy."

While Rublev had plenty of reasons to be happy, the same could not be said of compatriot Aslan Karatsev, who saw his title defence crumble at the first hurdle.

Karatsev won his first ATP Tour title in Dubai last year, weeks after making history at the Australian Open as the first male player to reach a Grand Slam semi-final on debut.

But it was a different story on Tuesday afternoon as the 28-year-old Russian was beaten 7-5, 6-3 by American Mackenzie McDonald, who exacted a measure of revenge for his defeat to the world No 22 in