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Bold Australian qualifier Jason Kubler is out of Wimbledon, but takes home a career-best $A340,000 winnings cheque as reward for his battling.
Jason Kubler won't be squandering his monster cheque after his fairytale Wimbledon campaign finally came to an end with a fourth-round loss to big-hitting American Taylor Fritz.
Champion at Eastbourne two weeks ago, the 11th-seeded Fritz snapped Kubler's memorable six-match winning streak on the London lawns with a 6-3 6-1 6-4 victory on Monday.
Kubler had been bidding to become the first qualifier to make the quarter-finals at the All England Club since fellow Australian Bernard Tomic in 2011.
But he found Fritz, the world No.14, a bridge too far.
"These last two weeks have been unbelievable. I wasn't expecting anything like this," Kubler said.
"When I do look back on today, it's not going to be, 'Damn, I lost'. It's going to be, 'I'm happy I got to play one of the biggest courts in the world and I got to play Taylor who is playing very well at the moment and I fought till the end.'
"If anything, now I can build off this result and hopefully do some other things in the future."
A one-time world No.1 junior enjoying a breakout season after finally receiving an injury-free run, 29-year-old Kubler's reward for winning three qualifying matches, plus another three main-draw encounters, is a career-best pay day of Stg 190,000 ($A340,000).
"Now I can almost go fully, fully in. It's almost like I can put a lot of money into seeing how good I can get.
"Even if another result like this never happens, at least I can put all my efforts, all my sort of own financial backing into it, and then sort of see how good I can get.
"I'm not so worried about paying the coaches to come to tournaments on their expenses.
"But hopefully a full-time physio, hopefully that stops the injuries and I can remain being consistent on the tour and hopefully my ranking keeps rising."
Had the ATP Tour not stripped Wimbledon of its rankings-points status in protest to the All England Club banning Russian and Belarusian players from competing because of the war on Ukraine, Kubler would have risen from 99th into the world's top 75.
But he was philosophical about his rankings misfortune, which could mean having to qualify for the US Open, the last grand slam of the year starting in late August.
"Yeah, fourth round, it would have been nice (to get the points)," Kubler said.
"But at least there is prize money. Two weeks ago when I was coming to this tournament, I was more than happy to have the prize money up for grabs.
"When I qualified, I was more happy for it to just be the prize money. Even then I didn't worry about the points."
