Four weeks, the tennis world was captivated by Tim van Rijthoven. In 2022, the Brabant native won the title in Rosmalen and shone at Wimbledon, but the retired tennis player never reached the top hundred. Partly due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
When Van Rijthoven looked around on July 3, 2022, he didn’t know what he was experiencing. He faced tennis legend Novak Djokovic in the round of sixteen at Wimbledon, while four weeks earlier he had never won a match on the ATP Tour.
Participating in a Grand Slam tournament had always been a goal for Van Rijthoven. But he never dared to dream that he would be facing one of the greatest tennis players ever on what he considers the most beautiful center court in the world. “It was one of the most beautiful moments of my life, for sure,” he said in 2022 to NU.nl.
On the sacred grass of London, Van Rijthoven feared no one, not even the six-time Wimbledon winner. He entertained the audience with a so-called tweener, a spectacular movement in which you hit the ball between your legs. The Brabant native even managed to snatch a set from Djokovic. That year, he grew into the public’s favorite in London.
The BBC called him the new ‘Darling Tim’, a reference to the immensely popular British tennis player Tim Henman. And that was not the only nickname Van Rijthoven received: ‘The Giant Killer’, ‘Tim Salabim’, ‘Wonderboy Tim’ and ‘The Wizard of the Netherlands’ all surfaced.
Two hours and forty minutes later, Van Rijthoven’s Wimbledon fairytale was over. After a winning streak of eight matches in a row and winning the Libéma Open in Rosmalen, he had only one wish after the most beautiful four weeks of his career: to reach the top hundred. An ambition that every young tennis player has, but for Van Rijthoven it seemed more difficult than for any other professional tennis player.
‘By far the best youth tennis player in the Netherlands’
In his youth, Van Rijthoven already belonged to the world’s top. In 2014, he was the world number thirteen among juniors and reached the quarter-finals of the promising tournament at Wimbledon. When he made the step to the seniors a year later, he had to deal with injury woes.
Among other things, his wrist and elbow were the big problem. In 2016, Van Rijthoven finally made his ATP debut as a lucky loser, but he could not crown this milestone with a victory. On what was then Twitter, he did let it be known afterwards that it was a “great experience”, not knowing what awaited him in the rest of his career.
In the years that followed, Van Rijthoven continued to struggle with his physique. Bowed under the high expectations and plagued by injuries, the career of the Dutch tennis talent seemed to lead to an early retirement. “He was by far the best youth tennis player in the Netherlands,” said Davis Cup captain Paul Haarhuis in the KNLTB documentary The Story of Tim.
When no one expected it anymore, Van Rijthoven succeeded in 2022 in making Haarhuis’ words come true. In February of that year, after good results in Challenger tournaments, he reached the top two hundred. This was also noticed by Libéma Open director Marcel Hunze, who granted Van Rijthoven a wildcard.
‘Tim-mania’ in Rosmalen
One thing is certain: Hunze did not yet know what awaited him at that moment. Precisely in his own province, Van Rijthoven turned the Dutch tennis world upside down. In the first round, after two hard-fought tiebreaks, he won against the Australian grass specialist Matthew Ebden.
It turned out to be the starting shot for a tennis fairytale. In the presence of his girlfriend Maartje and mother Marieke, Van Rijthoven booked surprising victories on the Brabant grass against the American Taylor Fritz (current number five in the world) and the Frenchman Hugo Gaston.
At Autotron Rosmalen, a real ‘Tim-mania’ arose. The ‘Wonderboy’ from Roosendaal went from 2,000 to 40,000 followers on Instagram and spoke to both Dutch and foreign media after every match. While the most beautiful was yet to come.
Van Rijthoven was also too strong for top favorite and world-class player Félix Auger-Aliassime in the semi-finals in a beautiful three-set tennis battle. “That I got a wildcard was already a surprise,” said Van Rijthoven after that match. “I thought I would play one or two matches here and now I’m in the final. Incredible.”
Medvedev: ‘He will reach the top ten’
That Van Rijthoven had never won a match at the highest level a week earlier seemed to have been forgotten by everyone at that moment. Daniil Medvedev, who played the final against Van Rijthoven a day later, was not surprised by his sudden breakthrough.
“We played together in the junior tournaments,” Medvedev said about Van Rijthoven a day before the final. “When we were both eighteen years old, he was already playing well on grass. So I’m not surprised at all.”
At that moment, the Russian did not yet know that he would lose the final without a chance against the wildcard player from Roosendaal: 6-4 and 6-1. Medvedev was the new number one after that final, but no one in the tennis world was talking about it. Medvedev: “I expect him to be in the top ten soon if he continues to play like this.”
But that prediction did not come true. While the tennis world seemed to lie at Van Rijthoven’s feet after Rosmalen and Wimbledon, his body threw a spanner in the works. He still needed a number of victories to secure that coveted top hundred spot, but felt aches coming up in the crucial weeks that followed.
Van Rijthoven plays best tennis at ‘wrong’ time
In a ‘normal’ Wimbledon year, he would already have been assured of that special top hundred listing. But due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 22, 2022 and the exclusion of Russian and Belarusian tennis players, no points were awarded for the world ranking during Wimbledon 2022.
An annoying decision for Van Rijthoven, who played his best tennis precisely those two weeks. Without the points from Wimbledon, he remained stuck at place 101, perhaps the most painful place on the ATP ranking.
Van Rijthoven did everything he could to play pain-free and collect points. But the injury that sidelined him in 2016 recurred: the so-called golf elbow. The pain became increasingly worse, after which Van Rijthoven decided in February 2023 not to play tennis anymore until he was pain-free.
After fifteen months of not playing matches, Van Rijthoven made his comeback in 2024 precisely at the Libéma Open. He hoped to play pain-free, but despite surgery, psychological help and a successful rehabilitation, Van Rijthoven again suffered from his elbow in his first match. “I didn’t feel like a player, but an extra,” he said after his bitter comeback on his favorite grass.
That persistent elbow injury now also appears to mean the end of his career. In tennis, it will never be more beautiful for Van Rijthoven than those four bizarre weeks in the summer of 2022. “But the fact that I never reached that top hundred and that there will always be 101 behind my name continues to gnaw,” Van Rijthoven said in June 2024 to NU.nl. “Although I now also know that there is more than tennis.”