MOSCOW, January 19. /TASS/. Russian tennis star Andrey Rublev faced insults from fans who displayed the Ukrainian flag during his 2nd Round match at the 2023 Australian Open tournament on Thursday.
Earlier in the day, Rublev advanced to the 3rd round of the 2023 Australian Open Championship after beating Emil Ruusuvuori from Finland. Playing at the Kia Arena in Melbourne, the 5th-seed Rublev defeated the unseeded Ruusuvuori in 2 hours 42 minutes in four sets: 6-2; 6-4; 6-7 (2-7); 6-3.
At the beginning of the match’s 2nd set, some spectators seated in the front rows behind the chair umpire unfurled Ukraine’s national state flags and Rublev asked the umpire to settle the situation.
"I have nothing against the flag, everything is alright with it, but they [spectators] should not be shouting bad words at me as we [the players] were switching the court’s sides," Rublev said.
Tennis Australia (the country’s governing tennis body) announced early this week that it ruled to ban the national flags of Russia and Belarus from being displayed in the crowd during matches of the 2023 Australian Open tennis tournament.
The Australian tennis federation’s ruling on the issue was promptly made on January 16 following numerous complaints on behalf of Ukrainian tennis fans. They called local police authorities 14 times that day, citing emergency matters and demanded to settle the matter of unfurled Russian flags in the stands during a 1st round match between Russia’s Kamilla Rakhimova and Katerina Baindl of Ukraine.
The 2022 Australian Open tournament is played on hard courts at Melbourne Park between January 16 and 29 and it has $53.4 million in prize money up for grabs. The opening tournament of the annual Grand Slam series in Australia marks its 111th edition this year. Spain’s Rafael Nadal and Australia’s Ashleigh Barty are the reigning Australian Open champions in men’s and women’s singles respectively.
The Russian men's singles champions at the Australian Open tournaments were Yevgeny Kafelnikov (1999) and Marat Safin (2005). Russia’s Daniil Medvedev reached the final of the tournament in Melbourne last year, but eventually lost to Rafael Nadal of Spain.
Russian players’ neutral status at tennis tournaments
On February 28, 2022, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued recommendations to international sports federations to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from taking part in international tournaments, citing Moscow’s special military operation in Ukraine as the reason.
Following the IOC’s recommendations in late February last year, the majority of global sports federations decided to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from all international sports tournaments.
The International Tennis Federation (ITF) ruled on March 1, 2022 to suspend the membership of the Russian and Belarusian national tennis federations and also canceled all previously scheduled tennis tournaments in these countries.
On March 14, 2022 the ITF also confirmed its ban on the Russian and Belarusian national tennis teams from taking part in the 2022 Davis Cup and 2022 Billie Jean King Cup.
The Women's Tennis Association (WTA) and the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) allowed tennis players from Russia and Belarus to continue participating in WTA and ATP tournaments, but under a neutral status.