Tennis missed a chance to ship a powerful message to Moscow by failing to impose a blanket ban on gamers from Russia and its ally Belarus after the invasion of Ukraine, world primary Iga Swiatek mentioned.
Wimbledon banned gamers from the 2 nations final yr after the invasion, which Moscow calls a “special military operation”, however mentioned in March that it might now settle for them as impartial athletes.
The 2022 event was the primary time gamers have been excluded on grounds of nationality for the reason that quick post-World War Two period, when German and Japanese gamers have been banned from the championships.
“After World War Two, German players were not allowed as well as Japanese and Italian (players), and I feel like this kind of thing would show the Russian government that maybe its not worth it,” Poland’s Swiatek advised the BBC on Wednesday.
“We are just athletes, a little piece in the world, but sport is pretty important and sport has always been used for propaganda … Tennis, from the beginning, could do a bit better in showing everybody that tennis players are against the war.
“Tennis didn’t really go that way, but now it would be pretty unfair for Russian and Belarusian players to do that because this decision was supposed to be made a year ago.”
Russian and Belarusian gamers have been competing on the excursions and on the different Grand Slams as impartial athletes.
Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka, who gained this yr’s Australian Open, has mentioned she struggled to grasp the “hate” within the locker room.
Swiatek described the locker room environment as “pretty tense”.
“It’s not their fault they have a passport like that … their situation is pretty complicated and it’s hard for them to speak out loud about it,” the 21-year-old mentioned.
“On the other hand, we all have some kind of impact and anything that would help stop the Russian aggression, we should go that way in terms of the decisions the federations are making.”
Source: sportstar.thehindu.com