Daniil Medvedev, the world No 1 tennis player, could face a ban from Wimbledon unless he provides public assurances that he is not a supporter of President Putin.
Nigel Huddleston, the sports minister, told a hearing of the digital, culture, media and sport select committee today that the government would only allow individual athletes from Russia or Belarus to compete in events in the UK if they received assurances that the individual was not linked to the Russian or Belarusian states or their leaders.
The All England Club is showing increasing concern behind the scenes about the optics of allowing players from Russia and Belarus to play in this summer’s tennis championships while the invasion of Ukraine could still be going on.
The Times understands that informal conversations have been held between officials from the grand-slam tournaments in recent days to discuss the possibility of going further than the initial decision between the sport’s governing bodies — including the ATP, WTA and ITF — to allow players from either country to compete as neutrals without a flag beside their name.
“Many countries around the world have agreed that we will not allow representatives from Russia to compete and there are visa implications here as well,” Huddleston said.
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“Nobody flying the flag for Russia should be allowed or enabled to take part, many sports people have dual citizenship and many of us would be willing to allow non-aligned entities but I think it goes beyond that and we need assurances that they [competitors] are not supporters of Vladimir Putin. We are considering what requirements we may need [to put in place] to try and get assurances along those lines.
“In short, would I be comfortable with a Russian athlete flying the Russian flag to compete? No. We are in discussions with the All England Club about this.”
Last month, Medvedev publicly stated that he wanted to “see peace”, although he did not make any direct criticisms of Putin or the invasion of Ukraine.
The pressure on tennis’s governing bodies to take further action was ramped up last week when a Ukrainian player called for a blanket ban. Marta Kostyuk, 19, who is ranked No 54 in the world, said that the presence of Russians at the Indian Wells Open “really hurts” and claimed that some had complained in the locker room about financial issues because of economic sanctions.
“You cannot be neutral in this,” Kostyuk said. “These ‘No war’ statements hurt me because they have no substance. Seeing players [from Russia] on site really hurts me. And seeing them having the only problem not being able to transfer the money and stuff — that’s what they are talking about — this is unacceptable for me.
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“What’s going on is not a secret. You don’t have to be into politics to know what’s going on, to know who invaded who, who is bombing who.”
Within government there is a “very active discussion on where to draw the line” on individual athletes, with ministers still unclear how best to avoid giving Putin a PR win without unfairly punishing individuals with Russian citizenship. They want to stop victory celebrations featuring the Russian flag, but also accept that forcing athletes to publicly condemn Putin could put them in danger when they return home. “There is a very live international discussion on this”, one government source said.
