The 2022 Wimbledon Championships was a unique tournament in many ways, one of which left the ladies' champion, Elena Rybakina, feeling weird about winning.
Rybakina ended up as the 2022 Wimbledon champion after beating Ons Jabeur in the final. It was a splendid event for Rybakina, who played amazing tennis for much of it.
She wasn’t considered a favorite or even a dark horse, but the combination of her good serving and deadly baseline play proved too much for the majority of her opponents, including Jabeur in the final.
While winning the event felt amazing for Rybakina, there are some things that have greatly diminished the experience for her. One of those things is simply not getting any points for her triumph because the event was stripped of its points this year.
It was a response by the ATP and the WTA to Wimbledon following UK government guidelines and applying a ban on Russian and Belarusian players. Nobody won any points at this year’s event, and for Rybakina, it was a big hit.
Those are 2,000 points that would have changed her ranking dramatically, both in the rankings and the Race. She spoke about that ahead of the US Open, admitting that she doesn’t really feel like a proper Wimbledon champion because she didn’t get any points.
"I feel like I’m not a Wimbledon champion. The point situation, we cannot change, but… it’s not fair. Many players are paying for these decisions."
She actually went as far as to say that it destroyed her dream because it was always her dream to win Wimbledon and now that she’s done it, it didn’t feel complete. It’s a valid complaint by Rybakina, but it's likely not her biggest problem.
"It was always my dream to win Wimbledon, and I did not get the winning feeling."
She’s ethnically Russian, after all, so she was lucky to escape the ban as she plays under the flag of Kazakhstan.
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