‘No competition for Medvedev’ Kremlin cup to ban foreign participation as a reply to Wimbledon

Daniil Medvedev

The Wimbledon ban of the Russian and Belarusian players has been met with a lot of outrage. Both the ATP and WTA have been quite vexed with the LTA’s decision of imposing a ban on the players. Many players including Novak Djokovic and Ons Jabeur have said that it was not right for the Wimbledon to mix tennis and politics as it would be really bad for the sport and the players too.

Top guns like Daniil Medvedev, Andrey Rublev, and from the women’s section, Aryna Sabalenka, Victoria Azarenka, etc, would miss out on the opportunity to compete at the Championships. This decision from the Wimbledon has been met with retaliation from the Kremlin Cup in Russia.

The Kremlin cup imposes a ban of its own after seeing Wimbledon

Kremlin Cup follows Wimbledon — The previous winners of the Kremlin Cup

The Kremlin Cup a hard court tennis tournament is a part of the ATP 250 series of the ATP Tour. The Kremlin cup has been a tremendous tournament with many notable players competing here in the past. The Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) have suspended the 2022 Kremlin Cup due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. And after the news of the LTA’s Wimbledon ban on Russian and Belarusian players, the Kremlin Cup organizers have decided to retaliate.

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The Kremlin Cup has decided to ban the participation of foreign players in the next edition with the exception of certain countries namely, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenians, Tajiks, and Kyrgyzstan. The players from these nations will be allowed to compete with the Russian players for the cup.

Ekaterina Bychkova, a former world number 66 is not a fan of such a decision from the organizers. She said: “I don’t see what the point of a competition like this is. It will no longer be the Kremlin Cup, but some kind of Spartacus. Why would Medvedev participate in such a tournament? I don’t see what his motive would be,” as per the Blic.

The point raised by Ekaterina is correct but the organizers don’t have the quality of the tournament into consideration, the decision is just a response to Wimbledon.