ATP strips Wimbledon 2022 ranking points

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/61401519

Basically means Djokovic will lose his #1 sometime after Roland Garros.

Don't like this decision. Not fair on the players that do well.

Also didn't like banning the Russian players either.

WTA and ITF both strip ranking points as well.

Wimbledon ‘considering their options’.

Yeah it’s been a poor decision by LTA and ATP. Surely both parties could have come together and found a middle ground.

Tournaments have to comply with WTA and ATP regulations for them to be included in the WTA and ATP tours.  In the past there were some flexibility in how tournaments could seed players with regard certain surfaces - so for example Wimbledon were allowed to adopt a formula that weighted grass tournaments more than other surfaces when seeding for Wimbledon.  

Australia's decision to bar entry to unvaccinated players is a grey area but neither ATP nor WTA reacted and nor did they react when the US barred unvaccinated players from entering the US to compete for the recent masters tournaments.   Maybe the reason the WTA and ATP didn't react to that was because it was based on government entry rules rather than a unilateral decision by a tournament.  The difference here is that Wimbledon (the tournament) is banning entry of certain nationals into their tournament rather than the government banning these nationals from entry into the country.  

Perhaps if the UK government banned all Russians and Bellarussians into the UK then the ATP and WTA maybe wouldn't withdraw Wimbledon from this years tour.  Other global sporting organisations refuse to allow unilateral Government interference into the sports they govern.

It’s worth pointing out the recently concluded Italian Open(Roma), my government wanted to ban Russian/Belarusian players.
But Roma isn’t a tournament that is government funded, so the tournament director rejected the request.
And as Bertie says, unilaterally banning the entire countries residents in Italy’s case anyway, was never on the cards.

Obviously I’m not really sure if the UK government holds a stake in the LTA. If they do, then the LTA has to obey the direct order.

Oh the irony. Wimbledon/UK Govt terrified of Duchess Kate having to hand over the trophy to Medvedev (seen as a PR coup for Putin) now find that the Russian will get to number one after Wimbledon.

Jeff Navarro wrote:... I’m not really sure if the UK government holds a stake in the LTA. If they do, then the LTA has to obey the direct order.

What I heard is that the UK government put pressure on the Wimbledon tournament and that Wimbledon tournament could have said no.

Looking further into the matter:

Wikipedia wrote:  The Championships (Wimbledon) are run by a Committee of Management that consists of 12 club members (AELTC) and seven nominees of The Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) ...

AELTC = All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club = private members club.  They own the tournament and its grounds.
LTA = Lawn Tennis Association = national governing body of tennis in Great Britain, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.

The AELTC is independent of the UK government, while the LTA is dependent on the UK government.  The LTA receives funding from the UK government has a certain level of independence of the Government but ultimately it is the UK Government that gives it its duties.

So the Wimbledon Championships is run by the "Committee" and I believe the Committee is ultimately independent of the UK government.

This fits in with what I heard, that the UK government lobbied the Committee to ban Russian and Bellarussians and the Wimbledon Championship Committee went along with that, but ultimately it was the Wimbledon Championship Committee's decision and not the UK governments.  So from the view of the ATP and WTA this was an unauthorized unilateral decision by a tournament that formed part of their world tours to exclude ATP and WTA players based solely on nationality.

ps: not sure who "Bernie" is.

No name Bertie wrote:
ps: not sure who "Bernie" is.

Bloody autocorrect

I should add the following:

pps: I believe the WTA and ATP have already ruled on the impact of the Ukraine - Russia issue on their tour: Russians and Bellarussians are allowed to play in all of the tournaments that form part of the WTA and ATP tours but they are not able to play under their national flags, hence the reason why these players don't have their national flag displayed in the draws etc.

sirfredperry wrote:Oh the irony. Wimbledon/UK Govt terrified of Duchess Kate having to hand over the trophy to Medvedev (seen as a PR coup for Putin) now find that the Russian will get to number one after Wimbledon.

I think you'd have found that this would have played out something like this....Duchess Kate would have tactfully reported a minor illness several days before the final (once the semi finalists were known, but before finalists were known) and announced no public engagements for a few days.

Whichever organization (Wimbledon, ATP, WTA) backs down and admits they made a mistake will win more respect than whoever sticks to their guns.

Henman Bill wrote:Whichever organization (Wimbledon, ATP, WTA) backs down and admits they made a mistake will win more respect than whoever sticks to their guns.

Wimbledon will lose my respect if they back down. They took a decision that they believe to be the morally correct one - if they back down on that, it shows they can be pressured into doing what they think isn't morally correct. I'm not convinced the ATP/WTA decisions are based on morals - more on compromise and rules.

Terrible decision, banning the Russian and Belarussian players was 100% the right thing to do. It might not be fair on them but who cares, some things are more important.

The fact other tournaments aren't following suit is a sad indictment of the priorities within tennis.

Would it be moral for Wimbledon to put all this years prize money into a Ukrainian fund and only pay the tennis players their expenses.  At the same time would it also be moral for all entry tickets into Wimbledon to include a £5 surcharge that would also go to a Ukrainian fund.  Similarly all profits from the tournament should go to the Ukrainian fund.

Given Wimbledon is taking a "moral stance" would it be best to actually put some hard cash behind it rather than it being just another example of moral tokenism? The Wimbledon Committee explained their decision by saying they felt obliged given the UK Government's stance and lobbying.

Jeff Navarro wrote:https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/61401519

Basically means Djokovic will lose his #1 sometime after Roland Garros.

Fantastic news. Wimbledon has been reduced to an exhibition and this decision makes full sense.

No name Bertie wrote:Would it be moral for Wimbledon to put all this years prize money into a Ukrainian fund and only pay the tennis players their expenses.  At the same time would it also be moral for all entry tickets into Wimbledon to include a £5 surcharge that would also go to a Ukrainian fund.  Similarly all profits from the tournament should go to the Ukrainian fund.

Given Wimbledon is taking a "moral stance" would it be best to actually put some hard cash behind it rather than it being just another example of moral tokenism?  The Wimbledon Committee explained their decision by saying they felt obliged given the UK Government's stance and lobbying.

Perhaps Wimbledon should close the tennis courts and sell the grounds to a developer and give all the money to the Ukraine. Would that be moral enough for you? Does morality always equate to giving up money, in your opinion?

I'd be interested in reading the official statement from the Wimbledon Committee that you refer to, where they admit to caving in to Government pressure, if you have a link.

One thing I'm sure we can all agree on, it that being forced to miss a tennis tournament, however prestigious, is in no way comparable to being murdered by Russian troops.

Where were our moralists when the US and Great Britain were destroying countries in the Middle East leading to millions of displaced civilians, hundreds and thousands of deaths, destroying the infrastructure of states allowing them to fall into ongoing civil war, all in search of mythical weapons of mass destruction and evil doers.

No name Bertie wrote:Where were our moralists when the US and Great Britain were destroying countries in the  Middle East leading to millions of displaced civilians, hundreds and thousands of deaths, destroying the infrastructure of states allowing them to fall into ongoing civil war, all in search of mythical weapons of mass destruction and evil doers.

So it's not right to apply moral values because of past unrelated behaviour?

No name Bertie wrote:Where were our moralists when the US and Great Britain were destroying countries in the  Middle East leading to millions of displaced civilians, hundreds and thousands of deaths, destroying the infrastructure of states allowing them to fall into ongoing civil war, all in search of mythical weapons of mass destruction and evil doers.

This isn't quite true though is it; some wars are more nuanced than others. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has no grey area, there is no nuance, it is simply one country attacking another sovereign country. War is in general a horrendous waste of human life but it's far more complicated than your post suggests.

No name Bertie wrote:Where were our moralists when the US and Great Britain were destroying countries in the  Middle East leading to millions of displaced civilians, hundreds and thousands of deaths, destroying the infrastructure of states allowing them to fall into ongoing civil war, all in search of mythical weapons of mass destruction and evil doers.

A lot of them were hold mass rallies against such action. Why do you ask?

No name Bertie wrote:Where were our moralists when the US and Great Britain were destroying countries in the  Middle East leading to millions of displaced civilians, hundreds and thousands of deaths, destroying the infrastructure of states allowing them to fall into ongoing civil war, all in search of mythical weapons of mass destruction and evil doers.

It's just typical western hypocrisy.

Duty281 wrote:

No name Bertie wrote:Where were our moralists when the US and Great Britain were destroying countries in the  Middle East leading to millions of displaced civilians, hundreds and thousands of deaths, destroying the infrastructure of states allowing them to fall into ongoing civil war, all in search of mythical weapons of mass destruction and evil doers.

It's just typical western hypocrisy.

This is just typically stupid reductive reasoning.

Duty281 wrote:

No name Bertie wrote:Where were our moralists when the US and Great Britain were destroying countries in the  Middle East leading to millions of displaced civilians, hundreds and thousands of deaths, destroying the infrastructure of states allowing them to fall into ongoing civil war, all in search of mythical weapons of mass destruction and evil doers.

It's just typical western hypocrisy.

You'll have to explain your reasoning behind that. The women of Afghanistan may for instance not consider the US and UK to be foreign invaders.

There is some hypocrisy going on. No sooner does the West announce it's phasing out Russian oil than Boris Johnson is seen in Saudi Arabia and Joe Biden is I heard negotiating with Venezuela.

Is Saudi Arabia really better than Russian, death to apostates and jail for protesting for the right for women to drive and the war with Yemen, and assassinating a journalist in a foreign country. A truly moral strategy would be to stop buying oil from anyone and rapidly built up solar, wind, nuclear etc.

Also, hasn't China caused more suffering to its own people through suppression of freedoms and especially the Uighers and Tibet, has done more harm than Russia has perhaps. Why not ban every Chinese player?

Perhaps Africa should ban the West from its tournaments for causing severe damage to Africa in the future (and now) through climate change. I mean the West may be deliberating killing millions of Africans from climate change so we can still have regular meat and SUVs and flights to the sun, is that any better?

The West's ethical strategy - and this is cultural or even biological as much as political - is to more or less turn a blind eye to a certain level of unethical behaviour up until some arbitrary point and then suddenly go mental and call you evil when in reality you are only 2% more evil than yesterday.

It has been known for 20 years that Russia almost certainly deliberately murdered scores of its own citizens to blame it on terrorism (search Ryazan incident) not to mention killing politicians, journalists etc, which was mostly ignored. They even gave the world cup to Russia in 2018 and not a single team or major player boycotted it, then all of a sudden an invisible line is crossed and it's a pile on from all sides as if we've been righteous all along.

Another part of the West's ethical response is to due with respecting national borders. There is unbelievably high tolerance for doing bad stuff within your own borders, as long as you stay within. I think I disagree with that as well but that's how it is.

I'm not really trying to say the West is as bad as Russia though, just to be clear, of course it isn't, but that the ethical strategy is a bit haphazard. It's a fine line that makes Saudi Arabia an ally and Iran an enemy.