Tennis was added to the Russians – Newspaper Kommersant No. 56 (7501) dated 04/01/2023

Russian tennis players this year will be able to play at the oldest and most prestigious Grand Slam tournament. The organizers of Wimbledon, which last year denied the participation of Russian players, changed their position under heavy pressure from both the structures that control tennis – the International Tennis Federation (ITF), the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), and International Olympic Committee (IOC). Its President Thomas Bach, explaining the reasons for this week’s recommendations on the return of Russians to international competitions and the conditions for this return, cited the British tournament as one of the examples of unacceptable government interference in sports.

The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (AELTC), which hosts Wimbledon starting on July 3, has announced that this year Russian and Belarusian tennis players will be able to take part in it as neutral athletes. For admission, a number of conditions set by the AELTC must be met. This is the player’s lack of state funding or funding from “state-controlled” – Russia or Belarus – companies, as well as “agreement” “not to support” these states, “their regimes and leaders.” Tennis players must sign an appropriate declaration of neutrality.

This is a rather significant event, because last year Wimbledon got out of the general tennis trend. While the vast majority of sports structures soon after the start of a special military operation in Ukraine introduced a regime of almost complete international isolation against the representatives of Russia and Belarus, following the recommendations of the International Olympic Committee, neither the International Tennis Federation, nor the Association of Professional Tennis Players, nor the Women’s Tennis Association they were not followed. They retained the opportunity for the Russians and Belarusians to play in tournaments. So did the owners of three of the four special-status and virtually autonomous Grand Slam tournaments – the Australian Open, Roland Garros and the US Open. The only exception was the oldest and considered the most prestigious among them.

The organizers of Wimbledon announced the ban on the admission of Russians and Belarusians in April last year. The decision was made “after consultations” with the English Tennis Association (LTA) and the UK government amid the publication of the results of a YouGov poll, which showed that 69% of the country’s inhabitants support it. As a result, several potential favorites were left without Wimbledon at once. These are, for example, Russians Daniil Medvedev, who at the time of publication of the decision was second in the ranking, and soon took the top line, with Andrey Rublev, who was in the top ten, and Belarusian Arina Sobolenko, fourth in the classification.

At the same time, The Guardian notes that a year ago there was an option with their admission to the tournament, subject to the signing of a declaration. However, then the organizers and the British government abandoned the idea, believing, among other things, that because of the signature on the document, Russian and Belarusian players “risk of facing problems at home” as people who openly criticize the authorities. The current format of the declaration of neutrality, according to the publication, does not involve “explicit criticism” of the special operation and, according to AELTC executive director Sally Bolton, “can be implemented.”

However, in explaining the lifting of the sanctions, AELTC Chairman Ian Hewitt, who stressed that the club continues to “completely condemn” Russia’s actions against Ukraine, called it an “incredibly difficult” step. And the head of the LTA, Scott Lloyd, in fact, recognized the measure as forced, saying that otherwise British tennis would have been waiting for “devastating and long-term consequences” that “millions of fans would have felt.”

The reason for the radical change of the British side of its position, it seems, really lies in the colossal pressure on it. The actions of the organizers of Wimbledon since 2022 have been sharply criticized by the ITF, the ATP, and the WTA. But the matter was not limited to words. The parent organizations lowered the value of Wimbledon by removing it from the list of tournaments that bring ranking points. In addition, the ATP and WTA fined the LTA $1.75 million for unjustified expulsions.

Associations and other, even more serious punishments were threatened. The ITF warned the LTA about the possibility of losing membership in the international federation, and the ATP and WTA that they could throw out of the calendar the traditional “warm-up” tournaments before Wimbledon, held on grass in London (Queen’s) and Eastbourne and enjoying great popularity.

Finally, this week support for opponents of British tennis leaders came from the International Olympic Committee. At its next executive committee, the IOC officially approved a new recommendation providing for the return of Russians and Belarusians to international competitions subject to a list of stringent conditions. And its president, Thomas Bach, now viewing absolute lockdown as a “discriminatory” measure, drew attention to the inadmissibility of government interference in sports. He cited Wimbledon as one example of such illegal interference.

Alexey Dospekhov