Exclusion from the 2022 Championships? Wimbledon's ban on Russian tennis pros
The All England Championships at Wimbledon are reportedly planning to ban Russian and Belarusian players from the tournament in 2022. Officially, the exclusion should be announced in May.
by Jörg Allmeroth
last edit: Apr 20, 2022, 12:33 pm
It was an iconic moment in the great history of the world's largest tennis tournament. The moment Maria Sharapova ascended to the Wimbledon throne as a 17-year-old teenager in 2004, inscribing a “true sports fairy tale” (The Times) on the Sacred Lawns in London SW19. Sharapova (35) is no longer on the tour circuit. She has just displayed a baby bump on Instagram, and the expectant mother also published some worried comments about the "Ukraine crisis" and an appeal for donations.
Sharapova is the only Russian winner in Wimbledon's long history, both men's and women's. And if I'm not mistaken, no other Russian pro will appear in the winners' lists at least this year. According to information from this newspaper from circles of the world association ITF (International Tennis Federation), the Wimbledon executive will exclude players from Russia and its ally Belarus from participating in the Open English Championships 2022 because of the ongoing war of aggression, not least due to pressure from the British Government.
Wimbledon 2022 without Medvedev, Rublev, Sabalenka?
The ban will not be officially announced until mid-May, when the starting lists for the most important tournament in the world are published. Wimbledon's verdict would break with the previous practice in tour operations, in which professionals are allowed to compete in tournaments as individual athletes, but without using national symbols. Russia and Belarus were excluded from team competitions such as the Billie Jean King Cup or the Davis Cup early on after the start of the war. Wimbledon officials, the Daily Mail wrote, have found the prospect of Russian champions holding the trophies aloft in the 100th year since the inauguration of Center Court increasingly "intolerable".
In the men's competition, the sporting consequences would be more significant than for women. Four Russian men are currently in the top 30 in the world rankings, including reigning US Open champion and temporary number one player Daniil Medvedev (ATP 2) and Andrey Rublev (ATP 8). In the women's top ten, only one player would be affected, world number four Aryna Sabalenka from Belarus. But even a multiple Grand Slam winner like Viktoria Azarenka (Belarus) would then be sanctioned, she currently ranks 18th in the tennis pecking order.
What are the French Open and US Open doing?
Wimbledon initially pursued plans for Russian and Belarusian professionals to sign a declaration distancing themselves from Russia's war of aggression. This intention had been criticized by players' organizations, primarily with a view to the effects that threatened the players' relatives at home. Sanctioning individual athletes "does not have the support of the WTA," said the boss of the WTA players' association, the American Steve Simon. It is not yet clear to what extent the Wimbledon decision will have a signal effect for other arenas: As of now, no sanctions are planned for the French Open, but a scenario similar to that in London is quite conceivable for the US Open in late summer - especially if the war should further intensify or expand.
There had certainly been tensions on the tennis tour recently - the experiences of the young Hamburg resident Eva Lys (20), the current German champion, were an example of this. After a tournament started in Nur Sultan, Kazakhstan in March, the Ukrainian-born Lys spoke of the irritating behavior of Russian players: "They behave disrespectfully towards those who are affected by the war. They make fun of it," says Lys, "some of them demonstratively put on a tracksuit in the Russian national colors." Lys also specifically challenged the players on the sidelines of the Stuttgart WTA tournament, where she surprisingly celebrated her first victory on the larger tennis tour Russia to position itself more clearly against the war: "I speak to many others in tennis from the heart."