BEIJING, October 7. /TASS/. Russia’s Anna Kalinskaya cleared the opening round of the 2024 WTA Wuhan Open tennis tournament with straight sets win over Hungary’s Anna Bondar.

Russia’s 10th-seed Kalinskaya, who plays under a neutral status, breezed past Bondar with the final score of 6-1; 6-3 and she is now set to face in the next round against the winner of the duel between Sofia Kenin of the United States and Yekaterina Alexandrova from Russia.

Kalinskaya, 25, is ranked 13th in the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) Rankings and has zero WTA titles in her career. This year, she reached the quarterfinals of the Australian Open, her best finish at any Grand Slam in her career.

The 2024 Wuhan Open tennis tournament has the WTA 1000 category and it is played on outdoor hard courts at the Optics Valley International Tennis Center in Wuhan between October 7 and 13.

The tournament is being held for the first time since 2019 in Wuhan and it offers $3.2 million in prize money. Arina Soboloneko of Belarus is the tournament’s reigning champion.

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 on the Russian and Belarusian national tennis teams from taking part in 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.