“They are playing for the Slam record” Andrey Rublev believes Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal will play this year’s Wimbledon despite no ranking points
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Andrey Rublev, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal
7th seed Andrey Rublev survived an early scare in the first round of the 2022 French Open but saw it through as the match progressed. Up against Soonwoo Kwon, Rublev won the match 6-7(7), 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 to advance into the second round. This was Rublev’s second win in the first round of the Grand Slam in his 4th main-draw appearance.
The French Open will be an important event for Rublev especially as it presents him the best chance to grab maximum points to add to his tally and needs a deep run. The Roland Garros become important for Rublev and his compatriots as they are banned from playing at the 2022 Wimbledon Championships and will be losing all of their points from the 2021 edition.
The entire Tour will however be losing points at this year’s Wimbledon after both ATP and WTA decided to take away all ranking points from Wimbledon as the Grand Slam did not make any change to their decision of banning Russian and Belarusian players. With no points on offer, there is a huge question of whether top-ranked players will be playing in Wimbledon and Rublev took the example of Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer in presenting his thoughts.
“I don’t know (if top players will be skipping Wimbledon) because I haven’t talked with any players about it. I guess, for sure, they will play, because the top players, especially Nadal and Djokovic, they are not playing now for points or for money. They are playing to be the first in history to achieve [the most number] of Slams,” said Rublev.
“We have to defend each other”: Andrey Rublev
Rublev also emphasized the point that decisions taken by Wimbledon and ATP are not a good advertisement of the sport and it harms players like Big-3 more than anybody else. He spoke about how the Big-3 have contributed to making tennis more popular and along with the protection of players, even the tournament needs protection.
“Like this, tennis will grow, grow, grow a lot, because now all the success of tennis is only because of these three players, because of Djokovic, Nadal and Federer. They did all the promotion that now tennis has arrived at its best years. Live streaming, about prize money that people start to follow more and more in tennis, it’s only because of these three players. It should be the opposite also.
“Tennis should also promote these players. Normally it’s teamwork, in my opinion. Their stakes are different, that’s why it’s important to all work together, to keep this incredible glory that we have now, thanks to these three players. If we don’t work together, we destroy it. Somewhere we have to defend each other, we have to defend the tournaments and the tournaments have to defend the players,” added Rublev in his press conference.
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Sarthak Shitole
(3462 Articles Published)