“Unfair” Rafael Nadal takes a strong stand against Wimbledon’s decision to ban Russian athletes
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Rafael Nadal
The world is currently in a state of suffering due to the Russia-Ukraine war. The conflict has directly or indirectly affected almost everyone worldwide and the sporting fraternity isn’t different either. Tennis in particular, despite being an individual sport, has taken some tough calls regarding the issue. The governing bodies allowed Russian athletes to compete on tour but didn’t allow them to use the Russian flag.
And to everyone’s shock, a few weeks ago, Wimbledon announced that they won’t be allowing Russian and Belarussian athletes to compete at this year’s Championships. Many contemporary players have condemned this decision as they feel that the players are punished for a crime that they didn’t commit.
Ahead of the Madrid Masters, 21-time grand slam champion Rafael Nadal too made a much-anticipated comment on the whole situation. In the press conference, Nadal said that the ruling by Wimbledon is very unfair to his Russian colleagues because whatever is happening is not their fault. He also felt sorry for them but reiterated the decision has already been made.
“I think it’s very unfair of my Russian tennis mates, my colleagues. In that sense, it’s not their fault what’s happening at this moment with the war. In that sense, well, you know, talking about colleagues, I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry for them. I wish it was not this way, but at the end of the day, we know that this is what we have,” he said.
Nadal was also curious about the fact that whether players will take some kind of decision together regarding the matter or not. He said that things will be a lot more clear in the coming days.
“From there onwards, we will see what happens. Let’s see what happens in the next weeks, if the players will take some kind of decision in that regard. In that sense, well, there is one thing that’s negative, you know, there are things that are clear. When the government imposes some restrictions, you just have to follow them. In that case, the government gave a recommendation, and Wimbledon just took their decision, the more drastic position that they could take without taking into account — the government didn’t force them to do it,” he said.
He further said that the grand slams are the tournaments where players score the most points and missing these big tournaments could potentially be very costly for the Russian athletes.
“So that makes that, you know, for our games, that we are in the organization, the ATP, of tennis players and tournaments, we are clear that the Grand Slams are out of all of it. But at the end of the day, it’s no less true that we are ATP, these are the tournament that have the most points, right? They are the most important. The 2,000 points, whenever we go to the Grand Slams, they are really important and we have to go to those tournaments,” he said.
‘Despite the seriousness of the situation in Ukraine, what’s happening is unfair’: Rafael Nadal
He once again emphasized that the situation around Wimbledon is very unfair but also said that the whole thing is very complicated for the Russian players. He concluded by saying that whatever happens in a game stays there, and called the situation in Ukraine very serious.
“So we will have to see the measures that we take, and it’s a very unfair thing for them, for sure. But unfortunately, I would say that in this moment, you know, being a very complicated situation for those Russian players, you know, there is a lot of things happening, Russia and Ukraine, and at the end of the day, what happens in our game is, you know, it doesn’t have any importance when we can see so many people dying and suffering and seeing the bad situation they are having in Ukraine, very serious,” he said.
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Lakshya Chopra
(2607 Articles Published)