HONG KONG, November 1. /TASS/. Russia’s rising tennis star Diana Shnaider reached the semifinals round of the 2024 Hong Kong Open tennis tournament defeating on Friday Suzan Lamens from the Netherlands.
The Russian, who is playing at the tournament under a neutral status, outplayed her quarterfinal Dutch opponent with the final score of 6-0; 6-7 (4-7); 6-2. She is now set to play in the semifinals against the tournament’s defending champion Leylah Fernandez from Canada.
Shnaider is 20 years old, currently ranked 14th in the WTA Rankings. Shnaider has three WTA titles to her name, winning all of them during the current season. Earlier in the year, she made it to Round 3 of the prestigious Wimbledon tournament. Playing at the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris she won a silver medal on women’s pairs together with Mirra Andreeva.
The 2024 Hong Kong Open has the WTA-250 classification and is played annually on hard courts at the Victoria Park Tennis Centre in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. This year it runs between October 28 and November 3.
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 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.