By Richard Pagliaro | Tuesday, May 24, 2022
The festering tennis turf war between the ATP and Wimbledon has turned toxic, Andrey Rublev says.
Asked about the ATP stripping Wimbledon's ranking points after his opening-round Roland Garros win today, Rublev pulled no punches.
More: Shapovalov Calls Double Fault on ATP and Wimbledon
The baseline blaster ripped Wimbledon for breaking its agreement with the ATP. The result, Rublev says, is a dysfunctional relationship between the men's Tour and the world's most prestigious tournament that could deteriorate further.
Wimbledon banned Russians and Belarusians in condemnation of Russia's invasion of neighboring Ukraine—a decision the ATP has called discriminatory.
"Wimbledon, they break agreement between ATP. That's the first thing," Rublev told the media in Paris. "When you have a deal, you cannot break it. And they did it.
"I think it's more about to show the tournaments they cannot do whatever they want. It's more about teamwork. Tennis, in my opinion, is the only one sport that we need tournaments to work together, and tournaments need players to work together."
Stars ranging from Novak Djokovic to Rafael Nadal to Denis Shapovalov have called Wimbledon's ban of Russians and Belarusians unfair.
In recent days, some players, including Shapovalov, are publicly opposing the ATP's response of stripping Wimbledon's ranking points. Those players complain they were not consulted before the ATP and WTA announced the elimination of Wimbledon's ranking points on Friday, while others say it would have been wiser to reduce ranking points in half rather than completely eliminating them because of the impact it will have on the rankings.
Does the ATP and WTA Tours' strike back at Wimbledon essentially decertify the grass-court Grand Slam to a highly-lucrative lawn exhibition event?
Rublev asserts the ATP's hand was forced to respond because he believes Wimbledon broke an existing agreement.
The seventh-ranked Russian said the ATP and Wimbledon now have a "toxic relationship" and cautions bubbling tension means "only bad things can happen."
"When we have toxic relationship like now, only the bad things can happen," Rublev said. "And in the end...or you let tournaments do what they want and in the end nothing good is going to happen, or you do a step and you show, Okay, guys, enough.
"From now on let's work together. Because if something happen with the tournament, players need to defend it, and if something happens with the players, tournaments need to also to defend. Only working together tennis can be much, much more success."
Whether unity can come in the wake of this historic chasm between a Grand Slam and the Tours remains to be seen.
Rublev predicts if the game's governing bodies cannot coexist cooperatively it will have catastrophic consequences for the sport.
"Even if, I don't know, Wimbledon, they go together with other slams and will try to create another tour, it will only destroy tennis," Rublev said. "It will destroy glory of tennis for many, many hundreds of years that tennis was building, all the big names they were putting passion into the tennis, results, all the history.
"So in the end, there is only one way, is to work together in a good way, to have not a toxic relationship."
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