MOSCOW, July 23. /TASS/. Russian tennis player Diana Shnaider is a talented player and her wins at various tournaments serve to shape up her "character and stability," President of the Russian Tennis Federation (RTF) Shamil Tarpishchev told TASS on Tuesday.
Last week, Shnaider won the 2024 Hungarian Grand Prix in Budapest outplaying in the final match on July 21 with straight sets win Alexandra Sasnovich from Belarus 6-4; 6-4.
"The tournament, which she won, was not extremely significant, but she still deserves to be appraised," the RTF president said. "Such victories shape up the character and stability."
"She is a talented tennis player and everything is ahead of her. She needs to keep working and progressing," Tarpishchev added.
The 20-year-old tennis player is currently ranked 23rd in the WTA (the Women's Tennis Association) Rankings. Shnaider has three WTA titles under her belt and she won all of them during this season. Earlier in the year, she managed to battle through to Round 3 of the 2024 Wimbledon.
Shnaider is also one of seven Russian tennis players cleared to participate in the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, which kick off this week in the French capital of Paris.
Last week, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) published a list of Russian athletes allowed to participate under a neutral status at the 2024 Olympics in Paris and it included seven tennis players.
Russia’s Daniil Medvedev, Roman Safiullin, Pavel Kotov, Yekaterina Alexandrova, Mirra Andreeva and Diana Shnaider will play in singles competitions and Yelena Vesnina/Alexandrova, Andreeva/Shnaider, Medvedev/Safiullin will be represented in doubles competitions.
The 2024 Summer Olympic Games will be hosted by the French capital of Paris between July 26 and August 11.
IOC’s regulations against Russia
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board convened for a meeting at the Olympic House in Lausanne, Switzerland, on March 19-20 and following the opening day it decided to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from taking part in the Parade of Athletes and also exclude them from the 2024 Olympics overall medal standings.
The IOC, however, ruled that Russian athletes, cleared to participate in the upcoming Olympics, would not have to sign anything denouncing their country’s special military operation in Ukraine.
On October 12, 2023, the IOC suspended the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) until further notice after the Russian organization included the Olympic councils of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), the Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions as its members.
The Swiss-based CAS registered on November 6, 2023 an appeal from the ROC against the IOC’s decision on the Russian governing Olympic body’s suspension.
The suspension means that the ROC cannot act as a national Olympic committee or receive financing from the Olympic movement. The IOC however reserved the right to clear Russian athletes to take part in the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024 as neutrals. Later, IOC President Thomas Bach said that Russian athletes should have no affiliation with the ROC if they want to compete at the Olympic Games.