Matteo Berrettini said the situation in Ukraine is “sad and complicated” but wished the decision to strip Wimbledon of its ranking points had been “taken in a different way”. Berrettini’s world ranking stands to take a hit following his run to the final last year where he accrued 1,200 points. The Italian will be one of the favourites for the 2022 SW19 crown given his form on the grass.
Matteo Berrettini has lamented the lack of ranking points at Wimbledon this year, and questioned how the decision was arrived at.
The Italian world No. 11 earned 1,200 points from his run to the final last year where he lost to Novak Djokovic in four sets, but he will not be able to defend a single one of them following the ATP’s decision to strip the tournament of its ranking points.
That was a response to Wimbledon’s move to ban Russian and Belarussian players from the event following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Berrettini – while acknowledging the horror of the situation in Ukraine – felt it could all have been handled differently.
He told the Daily Mail: “It doesn’t matter how well I play this year, my ranking is going to drop, and that is not fair, although I get that it is a really sad and complicated situation with what is going on in Ukraine.
“I just wish that this decision was taken in a different way. Nobody asked us our opinion about it and it shouldn’t work like that.
“But it is Wimbledon. I don’t think there are going to be any changes in the tournament.
“Everyone will make their best effort and it’s going to be a great two weeks.”
Remarkably for someone now so adept on grass – the 26-year-old has won Queen’s two years in a row as well as his Wimbledon final appearance last year – Berrettini admitted that he was averse to the surface as recently as four years ago.
He said: “I never thought I would be good on grass. The first year I played on it was 2018 and I didn’t like it.
“Then I did my pre-season before 2019 on really fast hard courts and after that the grass felt really good. I went to play the Davis Cup against India and we played on grass. And from the first practice I felt like, ‘Wow, this is nice’.
‘I was disappointed after the final [against Djokovic] but I couldn’t be too hard on myself, it was my first in a Slam and it had been a crazy four weeks [with Queen’s and Wimbledon].
“I had chances in the fourth set and could have made it a decider, but Novak has played so many Slam finals and is one of the toughest opponents ever.
“But I will never forget the atmosphere and love which I felt.”
