Australian Open boss sends Wimbledon clear message over Russia ban

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Craig Tiley has discussed the idea of banning Russian players from tournaments in what will come as a clear message to Wimbledon as the All England Club makes a decision over whether they will block contenders from Russia and Belarus again this year. The Australian Open tournament director called on tennis to show more support for Ukraine but said he didn’t support a ban on Russians.

Talk over Russian flags has dominated the Australian Open in recent days after Novak Djokovic’s dad was seen posing with a group of protesters who were able to sneak them in alongside ‘Z’ t-shirts on Wednesday. It came after all Russian and Belarusian flags were banned following day one of the tournament, when one was clearly visible during a match  between Ukraine’s Kateryna Baindl and Russian Kamilla Rakhimova.

The Australian Open tournament director has now explained organisers’ decision to move quickly to ban the flags following that match as he called for more support for Ukraine, but he also strongly opposed the idea of banning Russians as he urged others to remember that they were also human and condemned the war. “On Monday, there was a fan who placed a Russian flag right over the court where there was a Ukrainian player playing and we wanted to protect the Ukrainian player in that instance,” Craig Tiley said.

“It didn’t take long, we said ‘well, we gave you a chance, like we do with everything, we gave you an opportunity, we had confidence in good behaviour, you didn’t do it,’ so we banned the flags.” And the Tennis Australia CEO also explained that it wasn’t a surprise to see some attempt to make a political statement on-site but was quick to note that “nearly 100 per cent of people” had behaved just fine.

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He continued: “The thing I’ve come to realise year-on-year with this event is it has such a global significance, that it does become a platform for people to attempt to be disruptive or to make a [political] statement.” This year’s Australian Open is the first since Russia invaded Ukraine last February, and the Aussie Open boss also called on the tennis world to show more support to Ukrainians as he admitted he didn’t understand the full extent of their struggle until this fortnight.

“I would like the tennis world to support the Ukrainian athletes more, because I spend a lot of time with the Ukrainian athletes and I actually learned a lot about their situation as well,” Tiley added. “And the biggest thing is that no Ukrainian can go home. They’ve got no home to go to, so when they’re travelling around the world to play tennis, they just have to go to the next city to play tennis.

“And the other athletes, we can all go home — so I think we’ve got to all be more conscious of that and I would like the tennis world and maybe other sports, every week where there is a Ukrainian athlete, that tournament should support that athlete financially all the way through until the next week. I think that would be a really great thing for sport to do and I would be encouraging our sport to do it – we did it for the three weeks they were here.”

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But the Australian Open tournament director had a clear message to those who thought banning Russians from competing altogether was the answer, as he continued: “We don’t support banning Russian athletes, they compete as individual competitors, but we do support them not being able to compete as part of a Russian team.”

It comes as a stark warning to the All England Club, who are still deciding whether they will ban Russian and Belarusian players from Wimbledon this year as they did in 2022. “We need to be conscious that the Russian players are also struggling with this situation, they just happen to be from that country,” Tiley explained.

“Everyone I’ve spoken to are against the war, you saw Andrey Rublev had written on the camera lens “No war” [at a tournament in Dubai]. They all have family back in Russia so it’s always dangerous for them to come out, and they have, and be outspoken against the war, because I’m sure it puts their families at risk as well, so their mental health and wellbeing also needs to be monitored.”

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