Wimbledon boycott continues as Denis Shapovalov admits French Open pressure of points ban

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Two more top players have admitted they are unlikely to play Wimbledon this year following the ATP and WTA’s decision to remove all ranking points on offer at the tournament. Jelena Ostapenko is the second Grand Slam champion to cast doubt over her participation, while last year’s semi-finalist Denis Shapovalov admitted he felt pressure to perform at the French Open and make up for the points he’ll lose from Wimbledon.

Several players have questioned whether they will compete at Wimbledon this year after the ATP and WTA Tours removed all ranking points as a sanction for the All England Club’s move to ban Russian and Belarusian players from competing, and Shapovalov and Ostapenko are the latest to share their doubts over competing.

The Canadian reached his first Grand Slam semi-final at the All England Club last year and admitted that the thought of losing his 720 ranking points from his run to the last-four put the heat on him to perform at the French Open, where he crashed out in the first round to Holger Rune on Tuesday. 

“I don’t agree with either [decision],” the world No 15 said. “I think first of all, if you have a pro competition, that everybody should be competing. I completely understand the politics and the situation they’re in. But again, if you have a tennis tournament that’s supposed to have the best athletes in the world, it shouldn’t matter where you’re from, this and that, you know? So everybody should be competing.”

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Shapovalov also noted that the likes of Novak Djokovic would suffer as a result of the ATP’s decision, with the world No 1 almost guaranteed to lose his ranking when his 2,000 points as the reigning champion come off. He continued: “I also don’t agree with the ATP to take out all the points. The most guys it’s affecting are the guys in the top rankings. Obviously Novak, me, Hubi, Berrettini, who is not playing here, we’re going to drop a lot. 

“So it’s difficult. Yeah, it’s difficult. I think they could have gone with it a different way, maybe keep 50 percent like they have in the past or some kind of fairness. But even a guy like Fucsovics is going to drop out of the top 100, you know.  So it’s difficult for the players when you don’t have a chance to defend and especially on a surface like grass where it’s already so short and the players that play well on that surface they don’t have that many opportunities to make points, so you take a huge chunk of it out, it’s super difficult for players.”

And asked whether he had been part of the discussions surrounding the ATP’s decision to strip Wimbledon of its points, he added: “No, nothing. Not at all. I think most of the time most players aren’t consulted.” Meanwhile, another former semi-finalist in the women’s draw also blasted the tour’s “unfair” decision.

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A former semi-finalist at Wimbledon, the current world No 13 Ostapenko said: “If there are no points I’m not really sure what I am going to do.” She also blasted the decision to remove points as unfair, though also held out some hope for the tours to reverse their decision and allow players to earn ranking points for their efforts.

“If there are no points, I’m not really sure what I’m gonna do. I still want to focus on this tournament, and after, I want to see,” the 2017 French Open champion said, undecided on whether she would compete. “Because I feel like it’s a little bit unfair to play the tournament when there are no points and you kind of, you can win the tournament and then you don’t move one spot up in the ranking. So it’s a little bit strange. 

“But of course it’s a very prestigious tournament, so still, I mean, of course I love Wimbledon and I want to play it. Hopefully, I don’t know, something will change within the next few weeks.”

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