“It actually does not exist,” Marta Kostyuk calls out the ‘Russian peace’ propaganda as she lashes out at the Australian Open for display of the Russian flag
Marta Kostyuk calls out the status of neutrality and demands firmer action on Russian players.
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Marta Kostyuk (Image via: Imago)
The ongoing Russian-Ukraine conflict has been causing chaos not just in the affected country but also in the tennis community.
Ever since the war began, there has been tension among the players from both countries. From the no-handshake policy to the removal of Belarusian and Russian flags from the scorecard, it’s a never-ending, tumultuous case.
Just today, Ukrainian player Marta Kostyuk took to her Instagram account to talk about the Australian Open’s ‘hypocritical’ nature. All the tournaments under the International Tennis Federation had to follow the rule of considering players from Russia and Belarus as neutral rather than allowing them to represent their countries.
But after Kostyuk’s match against Russian player Maria Timofeeva, the tournament displayed the Russian flags alongside her name. Kostyuk called out this action of the AO. She urged everyone, including media representatives, officials, and the sports community, to stop using the tennis court to promote ‘Russian peace’.
Kostyuk shared how it’s been 700 days since the war began and how the sports world has been promoting a ‘murderous’ and ‘aggressor’ country. She classified Russian and Belarussian players are nothing but pawns used to promote ‘Russian propaganda’.
Marta Kostyuk questions the status of neutrality of Russian and Belarussian players
As mentioned, the Russian and Belarusian players have been assigned the status of neutrality and are not allowed to represent their sticks.
As per the ITF, they are also not allowed to promote any state-sponsored brand or sponsorship that the government of their country might allocate to them.
Kostyuk firmly questioned this by asking about the status of neutrality. She alleged that any such neutral status does not exist because, as per her, these alleged athletes have mentioned how everyone knows which countries they are from.
Moreover, their government has always promoted these players on an international level, which also grants sanctity to such players. That’s not all; the tennis professional further called out the media personnel for constantly mentioning their countries in their articles.
The rift between the countries might not end anytime soon, as might the tension between these players. The mood intensifies more when there is a match between a Russian/Belarusian, or Ukrainian player.
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Navya Mishra
(407 Articles Published)