Nadal calls Wimbledon ban on Russian players Unfair

Madrid, May 1: Rafael Nadal on Sunday called the Wimbledon and Lawn Tennis Association’s move to ban Russian and Belarusian players as “unfair”. “I think it’s very unfair on my Russian tennis mates, my colleagues. It’s not their fault what’s happening in this moment with the war,” BBC quoted the Spaniard as saying, who is a member of the ATP player council. “The 2,000 points, whenever we go to the Grand Slams, they are really important and we have to go to those tournaments. So, we will have to see the measures that we take. “What happens in our game 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,” he added. Earlier, the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) also criticized the move and termed it “unfair” and “disappointing”. The decision affected a number of highly ranked players, including the world No. 2 Daniil Medvedev, Andrey Rublev and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova from Russia and former world No. 1 Victoria Azarenka and fourth ranked Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus. (UNI)