The organizers of the Australian Open actually wanted to allow Russian flags to be brought along. But now there was an incident in a women’s match. As of now, the flags are banned because of the Russian war in Ukraine.
The organizers of the Australian Open have banned Russian and Belarusian flags from the tournament grounds. The country’s Ukrainian ambassador had demanded this after a Russian flag had been placed on the sidelines in the first round between his compatriot Kateryna Baindl and Russia’s Kamilla Rakhimova.
“Flags from Russia and Belarus are prohibited on site at the Australian Open,” Tennis Australia said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Our initial policy was that the fans could bring them with them, but not cause any disruption.” But that was what happened in the match, which Baindl won in three sets.
Due to Russia’s attack on Ukraine, Russian and Belarusian tennis pros have been forced to compete under a neutral flag for quite some time.
In Wimbledon they were even excluded from the competition, which had led to a controversy between the organizers and the tour organizations ATP and WTA.
The original for this post “After incident at Russian game: Russian flags banned in Melbourne” comes from tennisnet.com.
