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Contemporary women's tennis is blessed with inspiring athletes, from Serena Williams to Ash Barty and Naomi Osaka. The Wimbledon final added two more names — Ons Jabeur,Tennis has seldom had time for cloying nationalism. It has led the way in celebrating the individuality of its champions. Bjorn Borg didn’t need to don the yoke of Sweden, and Roger Federer didn’t play up his Swiss identity, just as Steffi Graf and the Williams sisters barely leant on a German or American crutch. It is against this background that Wimbledon’s decision to bar Russians and Belarusians, and subsequently Russia’s attempts to appropriate Elena Rybakina’s Wimbledon victory as “Russian”, need to be viewed. They are ignorant of tennis’ grand tradition of hailing gladiators who fight and win alone on hallowed courts.
Wimbledon doubled down — in the face of opposition from ATP & WTA, tennis’s governing bodies — when its members decided that Russian players will not be welcomed to the Championships, after Russia invaded Ukraine. Punishing individuals by viewing them as representatives of a disliked regime wasn’t particularly wise, especially since the likes of Rublev and Medvedev had spoken out against war. Russian media and the tennis federation suddenly staking claim over Rybakina is equally laughable. The 23-year-old, when asked about her dual origins, flashed tennis’s blazing individualistic pride: “I didn’t choose where I was born.” Playing for Kazakhstan for a very long time, she acknowledged the support the country had offered her, and politely turned down Russia’s attempts to score bragging points.
Contemporary women’s tennis is blessed with inspiring athletes, from Serena Williams to Ash Barty and Naomi Osaka. The Wimbledon final added two more names — Ons Jabeur, Muslim Arab Tunisian, a pathbreaker in her own right. And Elena Rybakina, the 2022 women’s singles champion. Besides thwacking forehands, these women choose how their identity will be defined. Tennis will remain inspirational as long as it allows them the space to do that.
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