Tennis problem – multi-power
Executive Director Tennis Federation of Ukraine Evgeny Zukin commented on the situation with Russian and Belarusian tennis players in the Tour. In his opinion, in the near future all players from the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus will be able to participate in all events, including Wimbledon.
“It was unrealistic to achieve a ban on individual specific players from the Russian Federation. We wrote a letter on February 26 or 27 to the ITF demanding that the federations of Russia and Belarus be excluded. We ourselves came up with this, this wording, we wrote this letter ourselves. They consulted with us, with lawyers, and decided that this was the ideal option in this situation. There was a moment, I think, if all Ukrainian players boycotted the matches against the Russians in February and March, then there would be a chance. Since this did not happen, after this there are no chances and there will be no more. ”
“ATP and WTA have an absolute consensus and they will “finish off” the British. To correctly understand what will happen this year, they say that they will take away all the licenses. The British will also suffer because of us. Because they are a trade union, you have to understand that. This is the players’ union and the tournaments’ union, which are united under one roof, and now everyone is fighting for their interests. Here they have a complete consensus among themselves that trade union members cannot be removed because of the actions of their leadership. Because if you ask who these players are, they are ATP players, they are not players of the Russian Tennis Federation. That’s the problem with tennis in general – it’s a lot of power.”
“I wrote a couple of messages to the players that I advise you to do this, but everyone did it the way they did. But listen, the chance was really minimal. The question of big money, because to refuse matches means to pay a fine. Instead of earning, you lose.”
In April last year, the organizers of Wimbledon decided to remove Russian and Belarusian tennis players from participation in the tournament in connection with the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine. The decision to remove athletes from Russia and Belarus was supported by Andy Murray, as well as the Tennis Federation of Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Finland.
Novak Djokovic and Andrei Rublev opposed the inadmissibility of representatives of the aggressor countries to Wimbledon. The ATP has filed a lawsuit against the National Tennis Governing Body in the UK, demanding a million dollars for the suspension of tennis players from Russia and Belarus.
At the same time, ATP and WTA allow athletes to their events under a neutral flag. It should be noted that at the Australian Open-2023, during the match between Ukrainian Katerina Beindl and Russian Kamilla Rakhimova, fans demonstrated the flag of the Russian Federation. Also, the symbolism of Russia was noticed at the match between Serb Novak Djokovic and Russian Andrey Rublev, and Djokovic’s father was caught on video with a fan in a T-shirt with the Z symbol.
Source: Sportarena
I’m Todderic Kirkman, a journalist and author for athletistic. I specialize in covering all news related to sports, ranging from basketball to football and everything in between. With over 10 years of experience in the industry, I have become an invaluable asset to my team. My ambition is to bring the most up-to-date information on sports topics around the world.
