On Sunday, Novak Djokovic won his 21st Grand Slam title at Wimbledon after beating Nick Kyrgios at the center Court. After losing the first set by 4-6, the Serb made a strong comeback to clinch the next two sets by 6-3 and 6-4. Eventually, the two players battled during the fourth-set tiebreaker. However, Nole secured the set by 7-6 (7-3) and won his seventh major grass-court tournament at the All England Tennis Club.
Although, the 35-year-old’s joy soon turned into chaos as he dropped from world no. 3 to no. 7 in the latest ATP rankings on Monday. Nole took a huge blow to his ATP points after losing the quarterfinals as a defending champion against Rafael Nadal in Paris. He dropped from world no. 1 to no. 3 following the French Open loss. Also, the ATP decided to pull out the ranking points from Wimbledon 2022, following the tournament ban of Russian And Belarusian players.
As a result, Djokovic is out of the top five for the first time since 2018. Nole started his 2018 season at world no. 12, fell two places down, and eventually dropped to world no. 22. But he went on to win Wimbledon and made it to the Nitto ATP finals to take him to world no. 1 at the end of the year.
This year, with no ranking points at Wimbledon, the 35-year-old lost 2000 points after the tournament. And because of that, Nole dropped out of the top 5 and currently has 4,770 points. Moreover, the Serb is facing a threat of ending the year out of 2022 due to the US Open’s vaccination restriction. Novak is firm about his stance on vaccination. He is ready to miss out on the fourth major of 2022 if the restrictions are not pulled back.
Djokovic Hopes Vaccinate Mandate Is Relaxed By Next Month
After winning his first major of the year, Djokovic is now eyeing the U.S. Open title scheduled for next month. However, the Serb would not be allowed to play until the vaccination mandate in the U.S. is lifted. Nole would hope to make amends at the US Open after losing the final last year to Daniil Medvedev.
After his Wimbledon win, Nole revealed that he was not vaccinated. Moreover, he does not plan on getting it done anytime soon. Djokovic feels that the only good news would be if he received an exemption to enter the United States without vaccination and playing the tournament. However, Novak does not think an exemption is possible realistically. He thought that the only way he would get to play the US Open would be if the restrictions get lifted before his trip to the USA.