LONDON, July 4. /TASS/. Russia’s Lyudmila Samsonova reached Round 3 of the 2024 Wimbledon after defeating on Thursday in straight sets her compatriot Elina Avanesyan.

In Round 2 of the Grand Slam tournament in London, 15th-seed Samsonova, who is playing under a neutral status, outplayed Avanesyan with the final score of 6-3; 6-3. She is now set to square off in the next round against another Russian player, Anna Kalinskaya.

Russia’s 25-year-old Samsonova is currently ranked 15th in the Women’s Tennis Association Rankings and has five WTA titles under her belt. Playing on the Grand Slam circuit, she has made it to Round 4 (the 2021 Wimbledon and 2022 US Open). In 2021, she won the Billie Jean King Cup as part of the Russian national team.

The Wimbledon tournament, the most prestigious out of the four Grand Slam tournaments, has been held annually in London since 1877. This year’s Wimbledon runs between July 1 and 14 and offers $63 million in prize money. Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz and Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic are the reigning Wimbledon champions in men’s and women’s singles respectively.

 

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 2022, 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 while also canceling all previously scheduled tennis tournaments in the two countries.

On March 14, 2022, the ITF also confirmed its prohibition of the Russian and Belarusian national tennis teams from the 2022 Davis Cup and 2022 Billie Jean King Cup.

However, 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 only under a neutral status.