Elena Rybakina Decides to Take an Unconventional Route to Spend the Prize Money Earned at Wimbledon Championships 2022

The 23-year-old tennis star Elena Rybakina recently created history at the Wimbledon Championships as she became the first Kazakh player to win a Grand Slam tournament. Despite winning the tournament, she will not see any improvements in her rankings, as ATP and WTA decided to remove the ranking points.

She did, however, win £2 million in prize money from the tournament. Apart from that, the Kazakh tennis federation also announced a hefty reward for Rybakina. However, the player decided to use those rewards and prize money in a different way.

Elena Rybakina decided to donate part of her prize money

According to reports, the Kazakh Tennis Federation was really happy with Rybakina’s achievement and wanted to give her a good amount of reward. But Rybakina refused it and asked the tennis federation to use the money to develop the junior players of the country. She said, “First of all, of course, I would like to help the juniors, most of it (money) will go to them.”

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Along with helping the junior players, she also wants to help the animals of the shelter. “And the second important point for me: I was at the shelter, and I was very much moved by it, so I would like to allocate money for the animal shelter,” she further said.

Notably, she played her whole junior career for Russia, her birth country. In 2018, she changed her nationality and became a Kazakhstan citizen. Earlier in her career, she did not receive any help financially. At that moment, the Kazakh Tennis Federation came forward with all the help for Rybakina.

Rybakina’s Wimbledon win caused plenty of controversies

Last Saturday, Rybakina beat the Tunisian player Ons Jabeur in the final to win her maiden Grand Slam trophy at the Wimbledon Championships. However, many fans and former players questioned her participation due to her Russian roots. Notably, Wimbledon earlier took the decision to ban all the Russian and Belarusian players from the completion due to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

Former American tennis player, John McEnroe, questioned Wimbledon’s decision to let Rybakina play despite her Russian roots. When asked about it, Rybakina talked about being a Kazakh player, as she represents them now.

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