A Ukrainian tennis player has called for Wimbledon to ban Russian players after breaking down on court over the bombing of a children’s hospital in Kyiv.
Elina Svitolina, 29, became emotional after winning her fourth round match, saying it was “extremely tough” to play so soon after the attack.
She had been given special permission to wear a black ribbon during the match. “It’s an incredibly sad day today for all Ukrainians,” she said. “It was really difficult for me to be here, and do anything. Just going on the court was extremely tough.
“Since the morning, I felt like I was in a fog with my thoughts … So many kids lost their lives.”
The bombing of Okhmatdyt children’s hospital was one of a series of strikes that killed more than 35 people across the country.
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Five children were confirmed dead at the hospital while others were pictured waiting outside the shattered building, many still hooked up to monitoring machines or drips. There are fears other youngsters were buried in the rubble.
Following Svitolina’s win, The Times asked the world number 21 whether she was comfortable with Wimbledon’s policy of allowing Russian players to compete under a neutral flag, or whether they should be banned, as they were for the 2022 event. She replied: “I would prefer that … We tried every possible way to talk with many organisations.”
Wimbledon relaxed its strict all-white dress code in 2022 to allow players to show support for Ukraine, with the world number one, Iga Swiatek, wearing a cap bearing the blue and yellow Ukrainian flag. Since 2023, Russian athletes have only been able to compete if they sign a personal declaration of neutrality.
In the next round Svitolina will play Elena Rybakina, who was born in Russia but switched federations to Kazakhstan in 2018. Asked whether she would shake Rybakina’s hand in their quarter-final tie, Svitolina said: “She changed her nationality, so it means she doesn’t want to represent her original country, so it works.”
The emotional on-court scenes came as attendance at Wimbledon slumped to its lowest for 26 years on Friday as the grounds were struck by half a month’s rainfall in a single day.
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Sally Bolton, Wimbledon chief executive, said this year’s championships were the “most challenging” for scheduling, as 79 matches were rained off over the weekend. Official attendance figures showed that 36,630 visitors came to Wimbledon on July 5, the lowest Friday attendance since 1998, apart from 2021, when social distancing measures were still in place.
On Friday there was 26.6mm of rain fall recorded, according to Met Office data from nearby Kew Gardens. Owing to the extraordinary weather and player injuries, nine matches were cancelled on Friday, 29 on Saturday and 41 on Sunday.
Some of these were junior championship matches and it is understood that the singles tournaments remain on schedule. Bolton said the queue for tickets caused “ambiguity” in the numbers attending each year, and said that if Wimbledon put all tickets on pre-sale it would sell out every day of the championships.
The tournament introduced an extra day of play in 2022, Sunday on the first week, to give the schedulers more flexibility in the case of bad weather.
During the first week, 38.6 mm of rain fell at Kew Gardens, close to the 47.6mm London expects to fall in an average July.
