After the organizers of the Australian Open decided to ban the flags of Russia and Belarus in Melbourne Park, where the first Grand Slam of the tennis season is taking place, Alexei Pavlovsky, Russian ambassador to the oceanic country, gave a harsh response.
“It’s shameful to see the organizers give in to open and rather arrogant political manipulation,” Pavlovsky said in statements reproduced by Russian media and stated that the tournament seeks to “sacrifice the spirit of fair play.”
The flag that led to the ban could be seen during the first-round match between Russia’s Kamilla Rakhimova and Ukraine’s Kateryna Baindl, who won. But it wasn’t the only one, because a flag was also seen in the victory of the Russian Daniil Medvedev against the American Marcos Giron.
Since the invasion of Ukraine in February of last year, both Russian and Belarusian tennis players can participate in tournaments but in a “neutral” way except at Wimbledon, where their presence was banned in 2022 and it is not yet known what will happen this year.
“In addition to discriminating against Russian tennis players with its neutral flag policy, Tennis Australia has now gone further by ensuring that they cannot be visually supported by their fans,” Pavlovsky said.
The first ambassador on Australia to speak out about the situation that occurred at the Grand Slam was that of Ukraine, Vasyl Myroshnychenko, who asked the organization to take action: “We strongly condemn the public display of the Russian flag during the Ukrainian tennis player Kateryna Baindl’s match at the Australian Open. I call on Tennis Australia to immediately implement its ‘neutral flag’ policy”.
Finally, the Australian Open organization released a statement and explained: “Our initial policy was that spectators could bring them but couldn’t use them to cause riots. We had an incident where a flag was placed on the court. The ban is immediately effective.”
Oleksii Krutykh, a Ukrainian tennis player who lost in the first round to Argentinian Diego Schwarztman, was “shocked” by what happened at Melbourne Park.
“It’s not fair what they’re doing. I think the guys who did it were Russians who live here, so they don’t care about what’s happening in my country. People are dying there,” Krutykh emphasized.
“I think they did it for fun, but they’re stupid. I think Tennis Australia should ban the people who did it,” said the 188th in the world and pointed to a spectator who had the image of Vladimir Putin, president of Russia, on his shirt: “He’s killing thousands of people and there’s a man wearing his shirt.”
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