Alexander Bublik: ‘Why not try to climb as high as I could?’

This time last year, Alexander Bublik had a conversation with Gaël Monfils in Dubai that helped change the course of his season.

Bublik had been in the top 50 for the majority of the previous six years, but was in the midst of a sub-par 2-8 start to the season and was slipping in the rankings. He complained to Monfils about how much tougher tennis has become because everyone on tour was becoming “super professional” and he didn’t see himself ever matching that level of discipline, nor did he want to.

Bublik is a guy who has long believed in having a work-life balance, and has openly said that tennis is just 50 percent of his life, the rest is dedicated to his family, friends, and other parts of his personal life.

Monfils’ advice was simple. He agreed with Bublik that the tour has become an increasingly professional environment, but added: “Wait for your chances. You have your chances, you use it. If you waste it, it's your problem.”

Bublik said that conversation struck a chord with him and he stopped complaining.

The Vegas trip

Shortly after, the entertaining Kazakh arrived in Indian Wells ranked 82 in the world and quickly lost his opening round to a qualifier. His coach suggested a short trip to Las Vegas so he could unwind before heading to play a Challenger tournament in Phoenix.

“He's like, ‘Man, if you play like this, we're just going to be out of tennis, [out] of the conversation by Wimbledon,” Bublik recalled to reporters at Roland-Garros last year.

Bublik took his coach’s advice and drove to Vegas with his wife to switch off for a few days. They stayed in the Bellagio, dined out, hit the casino, then drove off to Phoenix. At some point between Nevada and Arizona, Bublik realised the car he was driving was a hybrid and he was out of both power and gas. He says a cowboy stopped and helped them and he arrived in Phoenix three hours before his first match.

He made the final that week, lost early in Miami then shocked himself, and everyone else, by having the best clay-court season of his life.

The rebound

With the red dirt being his least favourite surface, Bublik started the clay season ranked 76, losing in the first round of qualifying in Monte-Carlo and finished it with an impressive 23-6 record, including back-to-back title runs in Gstaad and Kitzbuhel, a Challenger trophy in Turin, and a maiden Grand Slam quarter-final at Roland-Garros.

He also won the tournament in Halle in between, on grass, and walked away from Kitzbuhel ranked 25 in the world.

Bublik later explained that he was able to go on such a tear because he felt he was out of options. He saw himself spiralling towards the wrong side of the top 100 and decided to lock in.

“I just took matches way more seriously, because I can't see myself out of the top 100 and not being able to play the tournaments I like to play, because I still have courage to play tennis,” he said.

Bublik ended 2025 at a career-high No.11 in the world and started 2026 with the goal of making his top-10 debut.

He did not realise he would achieve his goal in the first week of the new season, as he stormed to the title in Hong Kong and secured his place among that sacred top-10 club for the first time in his career.

“When I won, I was really happy because I realised I’m in the top 10, then I felt numb,” he recently said on the Nothing Major podcast.

“I was like, okay, what am I supposed to do now? I have to play Australian Open, I have to play maybe another 25 events and I have to find motivation. So the first thing when I saw my team outside the court, I said like, ‘Guys, congrats, but what’s the goals now? We need to reset a bit and see what’s achievable’.”

Sticking to his approach

Bublik is currently 12-4 for the season – with the second-most wins on the ATP Tour so far in 2026 – with a trophy in Hong Kong, a fourth round at the Australian Open and semi-finals in Rotterdam.

He is No.10 in the world but knows that only 1,150 points separate him from the No.4 spot.

“I’m not defending anything until basically Roland-Garros. So, why not try to climb as high as I could? If it’s not going to work, I still already made the main goal, and then we see. But for now, it’s to win as many matches as you could, play good and play solid.”

In Dubai this week, Bublik was the No.2 seed and lost in the round of 16. But he cut a relaxed figure when he spoke to the press before the tournament, assuring he had no intention of ditching his laidback approach to tennis, even in the high-stakes world of being a top-10 player.

“Why change? I mean, I do what I'm comfortable with doing,” said the 28-year-old. “I live the life I'm comfortable with, with the joy that I have playing the game. Because it's just a game. You just have to hit the ball on the other side of the court and hope for the best.”

Big 3 level ‘beyond my understanding’

When a question was posed to him about what he thinks it would take for a player to reach the level of the likes of Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, Bublik’s response was unsurprisingly candid.

“I guess to be playing level of Nadal, Federer and Djokovic, you need to be as nearly as an alien as you can get. In my understanding, that's not really possible to be at that level. Because I think that's too demanding for my understanding. But I guess you have to be special,” he mused.

“Everything has to be together. You need to really want it. You really need to sacrifice all your life for that. As I said, for me, it's beyond my understanding. But I guess that's why they're so great.”

Bublik is now trying to contend with two future Hall-of-Famers in the form of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, who have shared the last nine Grand Slam titles between them and are a class apart at the top of the rankings.

Mixing it with the ‘cool’ kids

Having turned pro in 2016, Bublik coincided with the latter part of the ‘Big Three’ era but only got to play Djokovic, once in Davis Cup.

“I think the younger guys give more flair to the game,” he says, comparing the current generation to the previous one.

“I think they're cooler, they're funnier, in a way, because they're younger. I'm like, what, 15 years younger than Roger? And I'm like 11 years younger than Rafa and Novak. So for me, it was more about like looking up to them, watching them play. And not really being next to them. We're not friends. We cannot be friends.

“But with Carlos and Jannik, it's a bit easier with the connection, because I was on the tour when they arrived. So it's more of an easier and friendly relationship than with those guys.

“So that for me, it's just, they bring coolness to the game. I think it's cool to see that Carlos is like really a fire, like a funny guy, very loud. He’s stylish. He wears this crazy gear that he has.

“And Jannik is more about the style and elegance and more of an ice approach on the court, at least. Because off the court, I think he's quite nice. And I guess that's really cool. That's really cool to be playing in the same era. It's really cool to face them both and to challenge them sometimes.”

Tennis’ big moment

Another part of the sport Bublik is currently enjoying is how tennis has spilled over into pop culture over the past couple of years.

Whether it’s movies, TV shows, fashion or other aspects of the current zeitgeist, tennis has pushed itself beyond the boundaries of sport and the players can sense the shift, and are taking advantage of it.

“I have like 1.5 million followers,” said Bublik. “I'm not sure if I would have the same amount of followers if I would play in the Roger, Rafa era, because it was not as big. It was more about results related than antics related. But now you have players with like over a million.

“It's like Nick (Kyrgios), like me, the guys who were not as successful, nearly as successful as those guys. And we have a lot of followers. We have a lot of fans. Back in our home countries, I have requests to do movies. I have requests to do things. It's really like a pop culture thing back home for me as well. And I think it's great.

“I think like Joao Fonseca, for example. I mean, the guy won one ATP tournament. He's a star. He's a real star. He has followers. He has people following him to go to tournaments.

“So I think it's really nice that we can have a bit of a different type of approach in tennis and outside of tennis too, because we can be different people outside of tennis. We can do, I don't know, whatever, movies, singing, whatever is going to do something. And you can have a lot of following outside for your life because social media is a big thing. You can already have a lot of impact.”

Impact, a word that perfectly sums up Bublik's last few months.