In the fresh rankings of the Association of Tennis Professionals, Kazakhstan's Mikhail Kukushkin climbed 48 positions. Alexander Bublik dropped to 20th place. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Kursiv Media.
Competing last week at the Almaty Open-2026 tournament, Kukushkin lost in the round of 16 to future semifinalist Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece – 1:6, 2:6. Bublik did not finish his semifinal against Daniil Medvedev, who subsequently defended his 2025 title in Almaty.
The Russian, who retained fifth place in the rankings, is seeded third at the ATP-500 tournament in Vienna. Bublik, due to an injury sustained in the quarterfinal against Karen Khachanov, withdrew from the tournament of the same category in Basel.
The ATP-250 Almaty Open-2026 tournament was the last in Kukushkin's tennis career. Mikhail, born in 1987 in Volgograd, has represented Kazakhstan since 2008.
He won 16 challengers and became the winner of the ATP-250 tournament in St. Petersburg in 2010. In addition, he reached the finals of ATP-250 tournaments three times, became the champion of the 2014 Asian Games, and was a semifinalist at the 2020 Australian Open in doubles. In February 2019, Kukushkin was ranked 39th in the world.
For a long time, until Bublik joined the Kazakh ranks, Kukushkin was the No. 1 player for Kazakhstan in the Davis Cup. As part of the team, Mikhail reached the quarterfinals of the unofficial team world championship five times.
In the new ATP doubles rankings, Bublik, on the contrary, moved up one place. From 200th to 199th. Although in Almaty, paired with Zangar Nurlanuly, he finished his campaign at the start.