The British mock Russian tennis players before Wimbledon. The statistics are scary

Wimbledon will take place this year from 3 to 16 July. It is clear that tennis players come to such major tournaments in advance, they need time to adapt and prepare. However, the British organizers do not seem to think about such things, because less than a month before the start of the competition they issued visas to only 15% of Russians.

The behavior of the British was not surprising

The fact that it was the British who decided to mock Russian and Belarusian tennis players and infringe on their rights is not at all surprising. Wimbledon last year was the only Grand Slam tournament that categorically refused to accept our athletes.

For this, he was punished with the deprivation of rating points, and the news coincided with the massive refusal of top stars to participate in competitions. As a result, the royal family had to watch how the main trophy was raised above the head by a native of Moscow, Elena Rybakina, who competed under the flag of Kazakhstan.

A year later, the leadership of the ATP and WTA put pressure on the organizers of Wimbledon and strongly recommended that they lift the ban on the participation of Russians and Belarusians. The British resisted a little, but nevertheless realized that they could not afford to hold a tournament without rating points and without the presence of top players for two years. However, this did not prevent them from coming up with new obstacles for our compatriots. The most predictable and win-win option is to make it difficult to obtain visas.

Photo: © Andy Cheung / Contributor / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru

Ours will be allowed, but there will be new provocations

The first to report this was 16-year-old Mirra Andreeva, who, after a brilliant performance at Roland Garros, admitted that she could not talk about plans for Wimbledon, since she simply did not have a British visa. The athlete’s agent Lev Kassil, who also represents the interests of the first racket of Russia Daniil Medvedev, described in detail the situation with the visas of Russian tennis players.

– There is a fear that now the athletes will not receive visas. Approximately 15 percent of our tennis players have already received visas, the rest are not yet and remain in limbo. All procedures have been followed. When applying, you can use the express procedure, they took the money, but then they said that they could not help, since such a service is not available to Russians and Belarusians. It’s not about the money, it’s just that the players are under psychological pressure. I hope that visas will still be given, but, most likely, this will be done at the last moment, ”Match TV quotes Kassil as saying.

It is difficult to call the behavior of the organizers of Wimbledon otherwise than a provocation. They took advantage of the obvious and almost the only loophole to make life difficult for Russians and Belarusians. Most likely, the British will still resolve the issue with visas, but the result will be the loss of a large number of nerve cells by our tennis players. And this is their main goal. After all, if you completely refuse a visa, then this will cause a negative reaction from the WTA and ATP. Wimbledon does not need this, because the consequences will be the most deplorable.

Russian tennis players will certainly perform at Wimbledon, but they need to prepare in advance for new provocations, because in addition to the British organizers, there are also British journalists who will definitely not leave them alone during the tournament.