ATP has decided to use the hard point against the decision made by the organizers of the Wimbledon tournament. The members of the All England Club, following the indications of the British government, excluded Russian and Belarusian tennis players from the third Grand Slam of the year and created a very dangerous precedent.
Andrea Gaudenzi did not like the harsh action taken by Wimbledon and, together with the leaders of the Association of Tennis Professionals, announced that the London event will not be giving away points this year. “The decision that Wimbledon made and which prevents Russians and Belarusians from playing in the United Kingdom undermines our principles and the integrity of the ATP.
In the absence of a change in circumstances, it is with great regret and reluctance that we see no other option but to remove the ATP ranking points from Wimbledon for 2022. Discrimination by individual tournaments is simply not practicable on a Tour that operates in more than 30 countries,” reads the statement published by the ATP.
Guadenzi on Wimbledon: “Russian tennis players did nothing”
Gaudenzi returned to talk about the burning affair in an exclusive interview with the newspaper La Repubblica: “It’s a pity that Wimbledon decided unilaterally: it would have been more correct if it had talked about it with us ATP, about the exclusion of Russian and Belarusian boys.
Honestly, the tennis players didn’t do anything and didn’t even declare themselves in favor, so we couldn’t do anything but take away the points, otherwise we would have increased the injustices. Future of tennis? We would like richer Challengers, so we can help the youngsters – we’ve all been through Challengers, and we know the cost of tennis in the early days.
Families can’t do it. There are ten-year oppositions, because everyone thinks of himself and, above all, there are those who revived the disagreements received previously. But in the end we have reached a point, but we are only at the first step: the road is long and things are achieved calmly. Think of Paris: they did a big job for the Central, but it took them 12 years ”