Daniil Medvedev held his pre-tournament press conference at the BNP Paribas Open on Wednesday afternoon. At the time of it, there had not been any news regarding Wimbledon’s 2023 stance on Russian and Belarusian players.
Nonetheless, it was a still a topic of conversation during the interview.
“I’m not going to make this decision for them or even help them make this decision,” Medvedev said of the All-England Club, which banned Russians and Belarusians from the 2022 Championships in the wake of Russia’s war–supported by Belarus–against Ukraine. “They have to make it by themselves for their different reasons like they did last year.
“And I always said I will respect this decision. I play where I can play…tennis is my job so I would be really happy to play Wimbledon. I absolutely love that tournament, but if it’s not meant to be I’m going to wait for the opportunity to be back there.”
Just moments after leaving the press room, Medvedev and his compatriots found out that they will be back at the All-England Club this summer. Wimbledon announced that the ban on Russians and Belarusians will no longer be in effect. It did, however, add that anyone who shows any kind of support for Vladimir Putin will be kicked out of the tournament.
“I’ve said it so many times; I’m not going to say anything new,” Medvedev also said on Wednesday. “I’m for peace.”
thoughts?
I didn’t agree with the banning anyway, so I am pleased. Medvedev is no more responsible for Putin than I am with Johnson, Sunak and the whole bloody lot of them.
Not in my name.
The right decision, but I feel deeply for Svitolina, Kostyuk and the other valiant Ukrainian competitors, with no end in sight for the conflict.
Me too, jkarrel. It’s hard for Marta Kostyuk, Dolgopolov, Svitolina, Marchenko, and those who have described how painful it is. I used to be able to send them tweets, but Twitter under Elon Musk blocks me. Ukrainians ask the Russian players to speak out more than write on the camera as Rublev did. Speaking out against Putin risks everything, as we have seen. I can only imagine how hard it is. As Margot points out, the players are not responsible.
If the same Wimbledon criteria was applied before, American tennis players wouldn’t play much of GS tennis in the last 50-70 years …and British too.
The Comedian will be punished by his own people (though he is not even ethnic Ukrainian) for the misery he brought upon them.
Yeah for God’s sake let them play, leave the political stuff out of sport
Hello Ali, nice to hear you here today! Ricky made a WTA page here for IW; very generous of him.
Thanks lovely lady 😍
https://tenngrand.com/swiatek-favored-to-repeat-indian-wells-but-watch-out-another-former-champion/
Hey Alison 😀
The link above is to Ricky’s latest WTA analysis and where I will post about WTA stuff. He also left the non-tennis page open – I am going there to leave you a note 😀