Now there is a unique fact: no world ranking points will be awarded at the most famous tennis tournament in the world this year. That’s what the men’s tour (ATP) and women’s tour (WTA) decided to do to put pressure on the All England Club. Wimbledon had ordered to exclude Russian and Belarusian professionals from the grass event as a result of the Russian invasion war against Ukraine.
Dissatisfaction quickly arose in the professional scene, and it was not even players affected by the sanctions, such as the Russian Daniil Medvedev or the Belarusian Viktoria Azarenka, who complained about the decision. Rafael Nadal, for example, a member of the Players Council, found him “unfair to my colleagues”. Then, on Friday, the reports came tumbling down and the relevant organizations attacked each other.
The ATP and WTA accused Wimbledon that the exclusion was essentially discriminatory. Wimbledon immediately replied that the cancellation of the points was “disproportionate and harms all players”. In fact, there was only one party that was satisfied with the new development. “It’s nice that the organizations are on the side of the athletes” – said Shamil Tarpishev, President of the Russian Tennis Union.
If the only one who rejoices is a senior official from the aggressor’s country, that says a lot about how far this case has gotten out of hand. Wimbledon’s action was certainly well-intentioned. But it is also risky to implement, since a precedent would be set. On the basis of which other professionals from countries with, for example, serious human rights violations would also have to be banned. The reaction of the tours on their part is nevertheless understandable, they just want to prevent this precedent. The price of this collision is insane: Wimbledon will be a show event if everything goes as announced. Absurd.
The impasse into which everyone has maneuvered is above all an expression of the common opposition between the tennis powers. Nobody should point too much at the other. One also asks oneself: Do they actually talk to each other? When the French Open arbitrarily moved their tournament to autumn at the beginning of the pandemic, the French were the bad guys.
Now Wimbledon isolated itself, possibly under the false assumption that the others would follow the industry-leading tournament. But if there is no intersection of interests, the alliances in tennis, of which there are basically as many as players, tournaments, agents, sponsors, end.
Even the ATP is not self-contained, the players’ union PTPA would love to gain more influence. And when the WTA withdrew from tournaments in China because dealing with the long-missing Chinese player Peng Shuai was unacceptable for WTA boss Steve Simon, the ATP didn’t really shine with solidarity.
