Tennis, Russian Rublev: “Excluding us from Wimbledon is useless”

Tomorrow our Fabio Fognini will play the access to the final of the Belgrade tournament with the Russian Andrey Rublev, who together with the other Russian and Belarusian tennis players has been excluded from the next Wimbledon tournament. Match starts at 2pm, with live coverage on SuperTennis.

heartfelt speech

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On the sidelines of the three-set victory over Jiri Lehecka the other day, Rublev replied to reporters who asked him for an opinion on the exclusion from Wimbledon. The number eight in the world did not escape, on the contrary, he made a profound and articulate speech. “I will try to speak in simple terms,” ​​he said. “Some players and I had a call with Wimbledon, just to talk about the situation and try to find a solution. To be honest, the reasons they gave for the exclusion have not. sense and there is no logic in what they proposed. I could have understood if excluding the Russian and Belarusian players had some impact, but it will not help and it will not change anything. What they are doing is discrimination against us. ” .

prize money to donate

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“What we proposed at Wimbledon – I hope it is a sensible proposal and I hope they reflect on it – is to leave us at least the possibility of choosing whether to play or not – he continued -. If there was a declaration to sign that would force us to donate. We’d sign the whole prize pool for humanitarian aid, families and suffering children. I think such a move would at least really do something and show that the British government is really on the side of peace and wants to lend a hand. The results of the players could also come out in a figure of around a million pounds and I think it is a huge sum, which in two months no other sport has donated. Tennis would be the first and only sport to make such a donation and would make it through Wimbledon. That way they would get all the glory and respect of everyone. In the end what we want is to be able to compete; we are not here to talk politics, even he because I don’t know anything about it. I am Russian, I was born in Russia, I live my whole life in Russia and for this reason I would like to show that we are good people. I hope this has clarified everything. “