Antiwar Russians should play, Svitolina says

Elina Svitolina said Russian and Belarusian players who denounce Moscow’s invasion of her country, Ukraine, should be allowed to participate at Wimbledon.

The grass court major announced on Wednesday that Russian and Belarusian competitors would be banned from this year’s tournament.

The decision means that the likes of men’s world No. 2 Daniil Medvedev of Russia and women’s fourth-ranked Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus are ruled out of the June 27 to July 10 tournament.

World No. 25 Svitolina joined fellow Ukrainian players on Wednesday in seeking a ban on Russian and Belarusian athletes from international competitions but appeared to soften her stance in an interview with the BBC on Thursday.

“We don’t want them banned completely,” Svitolina said.

“If players don’t speak out against the Russian government then it is the right thing to ban them.

“We just want them to speak up, if they are with us and the rest of the world or the Russian government.”

WTA founder Billie Jean King said the Grand Slam’s decision was a “complex undertaking” amid the challenges and pressures they were facing.

“One of the guiding principles of the founding of the WTA was that any girl in the world, if she was good enough, would have a place to compete,” King said.

“I stood by that in 1973 and I stand by that today. I cannot support the banning of individual athletes from any tournament, simply because of their nationality.”