Eugenie Bouchard, a former Wimbledon finalist, said on Friday that she will not be competing in the Championships. She stated that the decision was made because the absence of world rankings points did not align with her intentions to manage her comeback from injury.
The Canadian player announced her intention to skip this year’s Wimbledon Championships in a statement on social media. She cited the decision of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) to not grant ranking points at this year’s Championships.
Due to the tournament’s decision to exclude players from Russia and Belarus, the WTA and ATP have deducted points from Wimbledon’s overall ranking.
In March of 2021, on her way to the final of the Guadalajara Open, Bouchard, who was 28 years old at the time, experienced a shoulder injury.
Following the failure of more conservative treatment methods, she had surgery in June of the previous year, which resulted in her ranking dropping since she was unable to compete for many months.
According to what Bouchard wrote, “since I had shoulder surgery, I only receive a restricted amount of protected ranking (PR) entries.” Using a PR entry in an event that does not go toward rankings would be foolish, despite the fact that I like Wimbledon and the thought of missing it makes me unhappy.
“I need to make intelligent decisions and utilise my PR entries at events that will bring me closer to where I want to be,” I told myself.
Bouchard said that she still intended to compete this year, and that she planned to utilise PR entry in both the US Open and the Australian Open in the following year.
In 2014, Bouchard made it all the way to the final of Wimbledon. That same year, she also reached a career-high No. 5 in the world rankings. That same year, she also made it all the way to the semi-finals of the Australian Open and the French Open. However, Bouchard’s career has been hampered by injuries since then.