British Tennis Forum - Celebrating 20 Years!

indiana · Tennis legend

Views on status of Russian players in tennis

9vicman · Futures qualifying

I disagree. I think there are a lot of reasoned and rational arguments in this thread, and I myself have never had a particularly strong opinion about whether players should have had a flag by their name in individual competition.

However in contrast John Isner's tweet is crass - in my opinion - and dismissive of the ongoing occupation. He could have chosen to give an explanation but instead chose clickbait. Leading to a pile on by other users, slagging off the Ukrainian female players, other nations, other governments, each other. The X cesspit that I keep visiting and then asking myself why.

Maybe I shouldn't be completely surprised. Isner is from the country that gave Zelensky a dressing down in public. But I find it all quite tasteless.

indiana · Tennis legend

I took it that Jon was meaning rubbish in the Isner tweet thread.

9vicman · Futures qualifying

Sorry I was replying to Jon's message not yours Indy. Our messages crossed. And the point I was making was that Isner's tweet was very different to the arguments being made here.

indiana · Tennis legend

9vicman wrote:
Sorry I was replying to Jon's message not yours Indy. Our messages crossed. And the point I was making was that Isner's tweet was very different to the arguments being made here.

I realise that, and as I said ...

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

indiana wrote:
I took it that Jon was meaning rubbish in the Isner tweet thread.

Sorry, yes I did mean Isner and the X thread. I voted for the restoring nationalities by the way. Sorry if I confused

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

9vicman wrote:
Sorry I was replying to Jon's message not yours Indy. Our messages crossed. And the point I was making was that Isner's tweet was very different to the arguments being made here.

Sorry, yes i was referring to Isners and his accolytes

Christine · Strong Club Player

I see the non use of the countries name as a message sent to their government, not sure it makes a huge difference but it's part of a bigger picture

octagonclock · Improver

Trying to start looking at more than just the mens forum so have been reading through this, and I have a few fairly disconnected thoughts that I'd like to bring up:

While I am pretty firmly of the belief that individual players should not be punished too much by the actions of their government, and, as such, voted to keep the status quo in the poll, I do understand CD's point about Putin still seeming to have depressingly consistent support in Russia, even if I personally don't think there's any doubt that Russia is in no way an even remotely democratic state (it currently ranks 150th in The Economist's Democracy Index, more authoritarian than those bastions of freedom Saudi Arabia and China). I think this is relevant because the flag ban is, of course, not just Russian, and I think there is fairly good and ample evidence that Belarus IS a nation held hostage by a pretty unpopular dictator, and is maybe a better example for why a player ban would not be particularly appropriate.

The other reason why I would be reluctant to support a ban is that I think by far the most important element of the restrictions is tournament-based. Russia and Belarus as far as I know cannot currently host any professional level tournaments which will already put a huge strain on the development of their players, by never having the advantages of 'home' tournaments and always having to travel in order to compete (and I imagine, even in this respect, it is more difficult to obtain the relevant visas as a Russian athlete to do this than it would have been 10 years ago, though I don't know).

There is one presence I do struggle with though. Earlier this year Andrey Rublev (who I generally have a lot of time for) brought Marat Safin onto his coaching team. While I do not believe Rublev should be held accountable for his government's actions, Safin was elected into the Russian parliament for Putin's party in 2011 and only resigned in 2017, 3 years after Putin first annexed Crimea. I have been very uncomfortable since then with the fact that a player at the top of the sport has been allowed to bring in, with almost no pushback, someone who was literally part of the offending regime, and indeed has been granted a substantial amount of publicity lauding the help he has given to Rublev. I simply cannot fathom how we can possibly believe that, as a sport, tennis cares about these issues while Safin's presence has been completely unquestioned.

With regards to Isner, to be quite frank, he can go [redacted for reasons of taste, but you probably get my gist]

KK · Club Coach

Coup Droit wrote:
Just to answer your question, GBJ, this is Russians in the UK (and some in France)

Russians in London, I probably should say

But it's also Russians ranging from one of the porters of my building to university students to a Russian guy who manages a hedge fund in Mayfair

And includes 21 year-olds, and 80 year-olds, men and women

So, in so far as it goes, it's pretty broad

It's actually been quite big problem in London - there were lots of Russians and Ukranians working alongside, in hotels, security, whatever. Who'd known each other and happily worked alongside for years, if not decades (in one case)

But it's all broken - the Russians support Putin, quite openly in most cases, and the Ukranians can't work with them

I was shocked by the support for Putin from a Hungarian driver who has lived in the UK for 8 years (including the BBC lies to us etc). Also when we were on holiday in India two different guides blamed us for making Putin invade. In each case they brought the subject up. Although I argued back vehemently, I would rather not have had arguments in such circumstances.