The highest ranked Ukrainian tennis player in the world Elina Svitolina announced today that due to the Russian invasion in her country she will not play “a match against a Russian or Belarusian [sic] tennis players until our organizations make that necessary decision. “
That decision, she said, should be up to the ATP, WTA and ITF to treat Russian players, as the IOC does, as “neutral athletes, without displaying any national symbols, colors, flags or anthems”. Svitolina is currently ranked 15th in the world. Her opponent in the first round of the Abierto GNP Seguros WTA tournament in Monterey, Mexico today was to be Anastasia Potapova, who is Russian.
Potapova answered shortly afterwards, saying: “Even as a child, I dreamed of playing tennis without choosing a match, country or partner in the game … for me there is no opponent from any country, I am fighting for victory, my best game, my best result … Unfortunately, we, the professional athletes, are now essentially hostages to the current situation … I am against grief, tears and war. “
It wasn’t just the players who took action.
Earlier in the day, Ukraine’s 38-year-old tennis federation secretary Yevhen Zukin slapped Tennis Europe chief executive Thomas Hammerl over a dispute over what he described as a “shamefully weak” statement by Tennis Europe about the conflict.
Although the statement called for the suspension of the youth tournaments in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine and called on “the international tennis community to show solidarity with players from the respective nations”, it did not explicitly condemn the invasion.
Zukin told the Telegraph Sport about the incident at an event aboard Tennis Europe: “I read the statement, finished my dinner, got up, turned around, saw him [Hammerl] I was sitting at five tables next to me and I asked him, “How can you do this?” He said, “Get out.” I slapped him lightly and left. “