Spanish tennis superstar Rafael Nadal thought the UK government proposed a player ban for Russian and Belarusian players and the Wimbledon organizers followed their recommendation.
On Sunday, Nadal spoke about the Wimbledon decision for the first time.
“I think it’s very unfair of my Russian tennis mates, my colleagues. In that sense, it’s not their fault what’s happening in this moment with the war. In that sense, well, you know, talking about colleagues, I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry for them. I wish it was not this way, but at the end of the day we know that this is what we have,” Nadal said, as revealed by Reem Abulleil.
“From there onwards we will see what happens. Let’s see what happens in the next weeks, if the players will take some kind of decision in what regard. In that sense, well, there is one thing that’s negative, you know, there are things that are clear. When the government imposes some restrictions, you just have to follow them. In that case, the government gave a recommedation, and Wimbledon just took their decision, the more drastic position that they could take without taking into account – the government didn’t force them to do it.”
Rafael Nadal weighs in on Wimbledon’s decision to ban Russian & Belarusian players:
“I think it’s very unfair of my Russian colleagues. It’s not their fault what’s happening in this moment with the war.”
“The government gave a recommendation… they didn’t force them to do it” pic.twitter.com/0IPYzWwANg
— Reem Abulleil (@ReemAbulleil) May 1, 2022
Nadal awaiting to see the response from the ATP, WTA
The ATP and WTA both said they weren’t happy with the decision Wimbledon made.
It was reported that the ATP and WTA could decide not to award any points to this year’s Wimbledon participants.
Nadal noted the Grand Slams are the most important events and the 2000 points the winner receives are extremely valuable.
“So we will have to see the measures that we take, and it’s very unfair thing for them, for sure. But unfortunately, I would say that in this moment, you know, being a very complicated situation for those Russian players, you know, there is a lot of things happening. Russia and Ukraine, and at the end of the day, what happens in our game is, you know, it doesn’t have any importance when we can see so many people dying and suffering and seeing the bad situation they are having in Ukraine, very serious,” Nadal concluded.