Newly crowned champion Elena Rybakina is currently back in Kazakhstan and a homecoming event has been hosted in honor of her unexpected victory at the Wimbledon Championships. The 23-year old defeated heavy favorite Ons Jabeur of Tunisia in three sets to secure her very first career Grand Slam title at the All England Club.
There’s been a considerable new coverage not just for her victory on Saturday but the fact that Rybakina is a Russian-born player who switched nationality back in 2018 and she’s now representing Kazakhstan. It is already known that players from Russia and Belarus have been banned for playing this past fortnight and Rybakina’s victory seemed to have been deemed ironic based on comments in the social media world.
The move to ban players have resulted to WTA and ATP officials’ decision to impose a no-ranking policy at Wimbledon. This affected all players who participated at the grasscourt Slam especially those who are defending a lot of points from last year or those who should have gained points for posting better results this past two weeks.
The players mostly affected by this were the ones who made it in the latter part of the competition such as men’s finalists Novak Djokovic and Nick Kyrgios and women’s finalists Elena Rybakina and Ons Jabeur.
At the conclusion of the Wimbledon Championships, eventual champion Novak Djokovic’s rankings dropped from number three to seven, Nick Kyrgios drops from 40 to 45.
On the women’s side, finalist Ons Jabeur drops from world number two to five.
As for Elena Rybakina, she would have cracked the world’s top 10 for the first time in her young career has the 2000 points been credited to her ranking. As of the ranking’s information dated July 11, 2022, Rybakina has 1805 which was good for 23rd place – the same rank she was in prior to the tournament.
Had the 2000 points been credited, she would have at garnered around 3800 points which would be good for at least a world number 6 or number 7 ranking.
At the end of the day, a Slam win is a Slam win. Big congratulations are still in order for the champions and finalists at the Wimbledon 2022 Championships.
