Women’s No.1 Iga Swiatek has criticized the governing bodies of tennis over their management of the war in Ukraine and believes a player ban would have sent a strong message.
During an interview with the BBC on Wednesday, the three-time Grand Slam champion said both the ATP and WTA didn’t do enough to show that the sport was against the war. Russia launched what it called ‘a special military operation’ against Ukraine on February 24th last year which prompted international condemnation. As a result of the invasion, a decision was made to allow Russian and Belarusian players to only compete on the Tour as neutral players. Those countries have also been suspended from team events.
“I feel like tennis, from the beginning, could do a bit better in showing everybody that tennis players are against the war,” said Swiatek.
“I feel they could do more to make that point and tell their views, and help us cope a bit better in the locker room because the atmosphere there is pretty tense.”
In 2022 the LTA and All England Club decided to ban Russian and Belarussian from their events, including Wimbledon, following advice from the British government who feared their tournaments could have been used as propaganda by the Russian government. However, the move triggered outrage from tennis’ governing bodies who subsequently decided to remove the allocations of ranking points and later issued hefty fines. It is argued that no players should be punished for the actions of their government.
However, Swiatek argues that implementing a blanket ban last year would have sent a strong message to Russian officials. Although she does not support implementing such a move now because in her eyes such a decision should have been made a year ago.
“I heard that after World War Two, German players were not allowed as well as Japanese and Italian, and I feel like this kind of thing would show the Russian government that maybe it’s not worth it,” she commented. “I know it’s a small thing because we are just athletes, a little piece in the world but I feel like sport is pretty important and sport has always been used in propaganda.
“This is something that was considered at the beginning, tennis didn’t really go that way, but now it would be pretty unfair for Russian and Belarusian players to do that because this decision was supposed to be made a year ago.”
It is not the first time the 21-year-old has spoken out in support of Ukraine. Last month in Indian Wells she called for more to be done to support those affected by the war and criticized Russian player Anastasia Potapova for wearing a Spartak Moscow football shirt. She has also previously held a fundraising event in her native Poland to raise money for those affected by the conflict and has also made other donations.
As for Russian and Belarussian players on Tour, Swiatek says it is not their fault where they come from but insists that authorities should take any appropriate action that could help stop what she describes as the ‘Russian aggression.’
“It’s not their fault they have a passport like that but, on the other hand, we all have some kind of impact and I feel like anything that would help stop the Russian aggression, we should go that way in terms of the decisions the federations are making,” Swiatek concluded.
According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, there have been at least 8,451 civilian deaths related to the war with 501 of those being children. On top of that, there have also been 14,156 injuries as of April 2nd 2023.
