Andrey Rublev was recently knocked out of the Wimbledon Championships, losing to defending champion Novak Djokovic in the quarterfinals. This was the World No.7’s best showing at the All England Club. Last year, Rublev was banned from playing at the Championships due to the ramifications of the Russia-Ukraine War on the United Kingdom. While in this edition, Russian players have been allowed to play but under 2 major conditions – 1) They will not receive any support from their country’s government or the governing body of tennis or any private organisation since they will not be playing under the Russian flag. 2) They will not show their support for their government’s actions such as invasions.
The decision has been met with mixed reactions in the tennis community. However, Andrey Rublev was pleasantly surprised to see the British-majority crowd cheering for him at SW19 in most of his matches. In fact, so much so that his ‘miracle’ shot in his Round of 16 match against Alexander Bublik is being still called as the ‘shot of the tournament’ this year.
Wimbledon crowd support gets thumbs up from Andrey Rublev
Andrey Rublev maybe Russian, but has never been in favour of his country going into war with Ukraine, an event which will soon enter its 18th month. Having the courage to speak out publicly against the government’s foreign policy, Rublev wishes that on a humanitarian level, the war is over so that people can go back to live normal lives in the respective countries.
What was also courageous is Rublev acknowledging the fact that in the United Kingdom, which is a superpower in the Western bloc of countries, a lot of sentiments are not in favour of Russia or its citizens. Instead, he chooses to be an ambassador of peace and focuses on upholding what the game truly stands for. In a post-match press conference after his loss to Djokovic, on being asked about deserving such support from the Wimbledon crowd, he was quoted as saying –
“I don’t know, I feel sometimes I don’t deserve it or something like that. I don’t know what you need to do to have this support. I’m really grateful for this.”
“It’s not (about feeling) guilty (for being a Russian). It’s more just that the situation is terrible.”
“Of course, you don’t wish this on anyone. You want these terrible things to be able to finish as fast as possible for all the people in the world to have a chance to have a good life.
“Being here this year, I felt grateful. I felt really great support during these two weeks. Today, as well. Is like I was saying, to be from the country where I am, to have this support, it’s special.”
Wimbledon semifinals: Daniil Medvedev ended up as the last Russian standing
As it turns out in the present, it is Andrey Rublev’s good friend and World No.3, Daniil Medvedev who was the best performing Russian at the Wimbledon Championships. Medvedev took on World No.1, Carlos Alcaraz in the men’s singles semifinal on Friday on Centre Court.
Alcaraz won in straight sets which denied Medvedev to become the first-ever singles player (men or women) to clinch the Grand Slam without playing under a national flag.
