Wimbledon ban called unfair

“UNFAIR”, “ARBITRARY” and “discriminatory” are some of the terms used by the two global professional tennis bodies, the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and the Women’s tennis Association (WTA) to describe last week’s decision by the All-England Lawn Tennis Committee (AELTC) to ban tennis players from Russia and Belarus from this year’s Wimbledon tennis tournament. The ban is as a result of political reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Wimbledon, the oldest of the four tennis tournaments called “Grand Slams” (England, Australia, France, USA), is considered to be the most prestigious and the only one to be played on grass. It is scheduled for July, but this year some of the world’s top players will not be able to compete.

Among the men, the world’s second- ranked player, Danil Medvedev of Russia and his compatriots Andrey Rublev who beat world No.1 Novak Djokovic on the weekend to win the Serbian title, Karen Khachanov (N)21) and Aslan Karatsev are among those prevented from competing. The leading female from Belarus, Aryna Sabalenka, ranked fourth in the world and her countrywoman, former world No.1 Victoria Azarenka, will be joined on the banned list by Russians Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Daria Kasaktina and Veronika Kudermetova.

Both the world tennis bodies have expressed disagreement with the ban. The ATP described it as “unilateral”, “unfair” and a “damaging precedent”. It said that while international tennis rules stipulate rankings as the basis for entry into tournaments, the Wimbledon ruling discriminates by nationality.

The women’s body, the WTA openly disagreed with the ban which it said, “violates the fundamental principle of merit and non-discrimination”.

There has also been strong criticism world-wide of the Wimbledon ban and the call from some quarters that players from Russia and Belarus should be forced to make statements condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a basis for being allowed to compete in international tournaments.