If you ever watched Danlil Medvedev or Aryna Sabalenka play tennis and weren't familiar with them you might look at the screen and wonder why their opponents have a flag next to their name but they have a grey background with no country associated with it.
This is because the WTA has made a very odd and childish ruling that Russian and Belarusian flags or even the mention of the country is banned at their tennis events. There was a move years ago during all this craziness to ban the participants from those countries from participating at all but this was quickly overturned after there was widespread outrage from fans and players from all nations. It was just Wimbledon that had this ban and later the points that were won in the contest were deemed invalid so even the people that had nothing to do with it were punished in their rankings as the points that they had earned at that tournament were now invalidated. All because politics had invaded sports, which I and most sensible people are vehemently opposed to.
This has been stupid since it first started. There was someone, somewhere that was trying to get the Russian and Belarusian players to not be allowed to participate unless they publicly denounced their own countries. What an absolutely ridiculous thing to attempt to have players do.
Everyone knows where these players are from and all other flags and nationalities are celebrated on the court on a regular basis, including the other nation who is involved in the conflict that sparked this all in the first place. In one instance, a Ukrainian names Elina Svitolina refused to shake hands with her opponent after their match in Wimbledon. Had this been anyone else they would have been fined or perhaps reprimanded in some way.
There is a certain level of civility that is normally on display in tennis and patriotism or refusal to play with certain nationalities shouldn't be part of it. I think that the WTA had intended for the conflict to be over a lot sooner and this banning of certain flags was just a childish gesture that kind of got out of hand and now it has been going on for too long to turn back.
Fans regularly have flags in the crowd, which is stupid in its own right, but of course Russian and Belarusian flags are banned at all tennis major events.
They claim that it is for safety, but come on now, that is not the reason. This is politics invading sport and it should not be this way.
Just today I was reading an article that was opinions about probably outcomes and various predictions about the upcoming French Open, and while all other players' nationalities are referred to, we have to pretend that Russian and Belarusian players come from this magical non-territory even though we all know exactly where they are from.
So we can't even refer to their country in written opinion article? Are we really this petty and stupid?
I find myself cheering for the players from these nations not because of any sort of political bias but rather, me wanting the babies that created this rule to suffer as much as possible. I want the people to have to face criticism as the announcers try to dance around not mentioning an entire nation because they are banned from acknowledging that Russia and Belarus so much as exist on a map.
It's really dumb. It's time for someone to apologize and put the flags back, or take all nationalities and flags out of the picture altogether if they want to try to one-up their petulant childishness.
What do you think? Do you support the banning of flags and if so, please enlighten me about how this actually helps anyone.