{"id":456774,"date":"2026-03-04T08:58:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T08:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/456774\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T08:58:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T08:58:07","slug":"dubai-trio-medvedev-rublev-khachanov-en-route-to-us-thanks-to-special-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/456774\/","title":{"rendered":"Dubai trio Medvedev, Rublev, Khachanov en route to US thanks to ‘special flight’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daniil Medvedev, Andrey Rublev and Karen Khachanov have completed the first few legs of their mad rush to get to the United States in time for the Indian Wells Open.<\/p>\n

The trio competed in the Dubai Tennis Championships last week with the tournament coming to a conclusion on Saturday with Medvedev lifting the title<\/a>, but celebrations were lowkey as his opponent Tallon Griekspoor withdrew from the final due to injury.<\/p>\n

But things took a turn for the worse after that as Israel and the United States\u2019 air strikes on Iran had a ripple effect with the Middle East country retaliating with attacks on American bases across the Gulf, including Dubai.<\/p>\n

It led to airspace closures and flight cancellations, resulting in major travel disruptions<\/a> with those in the United Arab Emirates unable to leave and make their way to California for the next event, the Indian Wells Open.<\/p>\n

The ATP confirmed that more than 40 players, staff, officials and journalists were stuck in Dubai with the Russian trio among them.<\/p>\n

After initially being urged to remain in their hotels<\/a> until flights resume, they were then given the all-clear to travel by car and they set off on a gruelling drive to the Oman border before heading to Turkey via a \u201cspecial flight\u201d.<\/p>\n

Indian Wells Open News<\/p>\n

Indian Wells Open withdrawals: 17 players out as Grand Slam winner joins list, Dubai trio still in doubt <\/a><\/p>\n

Indian Wells draw: Carlos Alcaraz, Novak Djokovic and Jannik Sinner learn their fate<\/a><\/p>\n

According to the Russian site Sports.ru, Rublev\u2019s mother, Marina Marinenko, gave RIA Novosti the following update: \u201cI am waiting for Andrey to call me when he arrives in Istanbul. A special flight was organised for Medvedev, Khachanov and Rublev\u2019s team.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey flew out of Oman at 4pm, and I am waiting for a call when they arrive in Istanbul, from where the guys will fly to Los Angeles. They said the flight would take six hours and 30 minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I\u2019m not mistaken, the ATP helped with the arrangements. They didn\u2019t allow the flight to take off for a long time,\u201d RIA Novosti quoted Marienko as saying.<\/p>\n

She later added: \u201cThey have arrived in Istanbul.\u201d<\/p>\n

Medvedev, Rublev and Khachanov are all set to play in the main draw of the season-opening ATP Masters 1000 event in California with first-round matches starting on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

However, there is good news for the trio as they are seeded so have byes into the second round with their matches scheduled for Friday and Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Daniil Medvedev, Andrey Rublev and Karen Khachanov have completed the first few legs of their mad rush to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-456774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}