Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina has admitted winning the title at SW19 in July was "not the greatest". She secured the most prestigious crown of her career when defeating Ons Jabeur 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 in the final last month.
The Kazakh though has been left somewhat underwhelmed with winning the title, after she dropped to 25th in the world due to ranking points not being on offer at Wimbledon.
The points were stripped ahead of the tournament, after the All England Club banned Russian and Belarusian players from competing following the invasion of Ukraine. Discussing her thoughts since winning the tournament, Rybakina said: "It's a pity. I feel like I'm not the Wimbledon champion."
The banning order saw the likes of men's world No. 1 Daniil Medvedev (of Russia ) and women's world No. 6 Aryna Sabalenka (of Belarus) miss the Grand Slam. Many supported the decision to punish Wimbledon for the banning, but Rybakina - who was born in Russia herself - has hit out at the WTA Tour in the wake of her win.
She said: "I would say [winning Wimbledon] was a great achievement for me. I'm super proud of my team, of course. But experience-wise I would say it was not the greatest.
"I think this is the problem of the structure of the tour. Honestly, a bit weak leadership because we have so many things going on. It was my dream to win Wimbledon. Of course, it's not nice. But in the end I know the goal is to win. It gives more motivation, keep on winning."
The lack of points at SW19 has seen the Kazakh suffer considerably in the race for the WTA Finals.
If ranking points were counted at Wimbledon, Rybakina would currently sit second in the standings but instead is in 25th and has therefore missed out on a top 20 spot.
Alluding to this, she commented: "It's everything around. It's the points situation. I don't think that it's fair. Knowing that as of today I would be No.2 in the Race and I'm not able to play the Race, I don't think it's fair. I'm talking not only about myself, but just generally I think with all the decisions, many players are paying for all these decisions."
