LONDON, 31 Mar: Russian and Belarusian players will be able to compete at Wimbledon as neutral athletes after the All England Club on Friday reversed its ban from last year.
\nThe players must sign declarations of neutrality and comply with \u201cappropriate conditions,\u201d including not expressing support for Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.
\n\u201cThis was an incredibly difficult decision, not taken lightly or without a great deal of consideration for those who will be impacted,\u201d All England Club chairman Ian Hewitt said in a statement.
\nThe players cannot receive funding from the Russian or Belarusian states, including sponsorship from companies operated or controlled by the states.
\nAustralian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus and Russian players Daniil Medvedev and Andrey Rublev are among the players who can return.
\nUkrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba condemned the reversal as \u201cimmoral.\u201d
\n\u201cHas Russia ceased its aggression or atrocities? No, it\u2019s just that Wimbledon decided to accommodate two accomplices in crime. I call on the UK government to deny visas to their players,\u201d Kuleba wrote on Twitter.
\nOther tennis tournaments have allowed Russian and Belarusian players to compete as neutral athletes \u2014 their nationalities are not listed in the brackets, official results or graphics on TV broadcasts of matches. But, as in some other team sports, Russia and Belarus were not permitted to participate in the Billie Jean King Cup or Davis Cup by the International Tennis Federation.
\n\u201cWe also consider alignment between the Grand Slams to be increasingly important in the current tennis environment,\u201d the All England Club said.
\nThe same conditions will apply for Lawn Tennis Association tournaments used by players as grass-court warmups for the sport\u2019s oldest Grand Slam tournament.
\nThe women\u2019s and men\u2019s professional tennis tours last year imposed heavy fines on the LTA and threatened to pull its tournaments. The effect of being expelled from the tours, the LTA said, \u201cwould be very damaging and far reaching for the game in our country.\u201d
\nThe ATP and WTA had also responded to last year\u2019s ban by not awarding ranking points for Wimbledon \u2014 an unprecedented move against the prestigious event.
\n\u201cThere was a strong and very disappointing reaction from some governing bodies in tennis to the position taken by the All England Club and the LTA last year with consequences which, if continued, would be damaging to the interests of players, fans, The Championships and British tennis,\u201d the club said.
\nThis year\u2019s Wimbledon tournament will start on July 3. The women\u2019s final is scheduled for July 15 and the men\u2019s final on July 16.
\nMartina Navratilova, who won a record nine Wimbledon singles titles, was among those in favor of this change. She wrote on Twitter, \u201cas I said last year, this was a bad decision and I am glad it was reversed.\u201d
\nThe All England Club said the conditions were developed through talks with the British government, the LTA and \u201cinternational stakeholder bodies in tennis.\u201d
\nThe club\u2019s statement described \u201cpersonal player declarations\u201d but didn\u2019t provide details. The LTA said the players and support staff \u201cwill be required to sign neutrality declarations\u201d similar to those used in other sports.
\nIn a joint statement, the ATP and WTA said they were satisfied with the outcome.
\n\u201cIt has taken a collaborative effort across the sport to arrive at a workable solution, which protects the fairness of the game,\u201d the tours said. \u201cThis remains an extremely difficult situation, and we would like to thank Wimbledon and the LTA for their efforts in reaching this outcome, while reiterating our unequivocal condemnation of Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine.\u201d (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LONDON, 31 Mar: Russian and Belarusian players will be able to compete at Wimbledon as neutral athletes after the All England Club on Friday reversed its ban from last year. The players must sign declarations of neutrality and comply with \u201cappropriate conditions,\u201d including not expressing support for Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine. \u201cThis was an incredibly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-214020","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214020\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}