London is waiting for rackets under a neutral flag

The organizers of the Wimbledon tournament this year intend to lift the ban imposed in 2022 on the participation of players from Russia and Belarus in their competition. According to the British press, the same applies to the five 500 and 250 tournaments of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), which are held in the UK. At the same time, as in other ATP and WTA competitions, Russians and Belarusians will compete there under a neutral flag.

The fact that Russian and Belarusian players this year will almost certainly be admitted to Wimbledon and the grass tournaments of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) under a neutral flag this year, the publication reported Daily Mail. According to him, the organizers of the most prestigious tennis competition in the world were forced to give in to pressure from the ATP and WTA, which last season, in response to the British decision to refuse Russians and Belarusians to participate in Wimbledon, deprived the grass Grand Slam championship of rating points.

Previous edition Guardian emphasized that if the British side maintained the status quo in this matter, it would face even more serious sanctions from the APR and WTA. This would go as far as revoking the licenses of the two men’s (London, Eastbourne) and three women’s (Nottingham, Birmingham, Eastbourne) June 500 and 250 grass tournaments that are held in the UK before Wimbledon. Thus, the English Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) could have suffered a financial loss of around £20m, facing what an anonymous Guardian source described as an “existential threat”.

The conditions that Russians and Belarusians will have to fulfill in order to be able to participate in British tournaments are still being agreed between several authorities.

These appear to include the LTA, the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (AELTC), which organizes Wimbledon, the UK government, the International Tennis Federation (ITF), and the ATP and WTA, which confirmed last season that the criterion for participation in their competitions is the corresponding place in the world ranking, but not the nationality.

According to the Daily Mail, Russians and Belarusians will not need to make a public statement of disagreement with Russia’s actions in the conflict with Ukraine (a similar option, according to Nigel Huddleston, a former parliamentary undersecretary of state for sports, tourism and civil society, who was replaced in September in this post another representative of the Conservative Party, Stuart Andrew, was considered last year).

Most likely, athletes will have to put their signature on some document, which will actually list the same rules for maintaining neutrality that are already applied de facto in other professional tennis tournaments.

This list includes the refusal to use state Russian symbols and public support for Russian politics. The final decision on this matter will be announced in London in April.

Recall that last year the UK was the only country that, hosting the ATP and WTA tournaments on its territory, did not allow Russians and Belarusians to take part in them, who have been playing at all tennis competitions under a neutral flag for twelve months now. At the same time, Minsker Arina Sabolenko, a semi-finalist of Wimbledon two years ago, in January won at the Australian Open and ranks second in the WTA rankings, and the top ten men’s classification includes the best player in February, Daniil Medvedev, who won three titles in a row in Rotterdam, Doha and Dubai, and Andrei Rublev. In total, about 30 players from Russia and Belarus are currently applying for participation in the qualification and the main Wimbledon tournament. In any case, the top hundred ATP and WTA singles rankings to date include four men and thirteen women, plus five more tennis players are in the top 100 doubles classification.

Evgeny Fedyakov