Russian and Belarusian tennis players will not be allowed to play in this year’s edition Wimbledon due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It is the decision of the organizers of the most famous tennis tournament in the world, but Russia will still have a representative in the All England Club. One Russian tennis player has found a way to cheat the system. And fooled the organizers who are powerless in this case.
Russian Natela Dzalamidze changed her citizenship just to be able to compete at Wimbledon, so she will compete under the Georgian flag in the future! Just like all Russian and Belarusian tennis players, she has played under the neutral flag for the last four months, just like at Roland Garros.
It seemed that she would not be at Wimbledon due to the rigorous decision of the organizers. We will not see the world’s first tennis player Danilo Medvedev, Russian tennis players tried to find a hole in the law, but failed. But that is why it is Dzalamidze. She was born in Moscow and has played for Russia all her career, but she also has Georgian roots, so with the help of politics she solved all the necessary documentation in a short time and changed her citizenship at the speed of light.
Wimbledon said they were powerless in this case and that they could not ban Dzalamidza from appearing because, technically, he no longer had anything to do with Russia.
The tournament starts on June 27 and lasts until July 10. Due to this decision of the organizers, the ATP canceled the points for Wimbledon, so they rightly feared that the best tennis players would give up their performance. But they have one sufficient motive. And those are cash prizes that are bigger than ever. The total fund is $ 50 million, and the winners in the men’s and women’s singles will earn 2.5 million euros.