Rafael Nadal has spoken for the first time about the ongoing debate over the ban imposed on Russian and Belarusian players who won't be competing at Wimbledon.
It's now official that Russian and Belarusian players will not play at the grass-court major after the All England Club made the controversial decision to prohibit them because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Wimbledon organizers argued that the decision was made in the interests and safety of all stakeholders, including the players, and that they wouldn't tolerate promoting the war in the tournament.
As such, the players from the two countries are set to pay the heavy price of being banned from competition in a move that has caused tension within the tennis community.
A lot of players and pundits have already shared their views about the topic and even the two governing bodies of Tour-level tennis, the ATP and WTA declared they were not in alignment with Wimbledon's decision.
The ATP has confirmed that it will strip ranking points from the tournament, and the WTA is currently in talks to allow players to keep half of their points.
Nadal, who is fresh from winning his 22nd Grand Slam title at Roland Garros, spoke to Christiane Amanpour of CNN and sympathized with Ukrainian families losing their loved ones. He respected Wimbledon's decision but explained that Russian players have their hands tied.
"I have my colleagues on the tour that I know very well that they can’t say much honestly."
Amanpour specifically mentioned former World No. 1 Daniil Medvedev as the most prominent of those banned. The Russian superstar has termed the current events as "very upsetting" and did not issue a further comment, and Nadal agrees that players have no role in the current ordeal.
"Exactly. But they for sure don’t have nothing to do with the war and they can’t do anything and they [are] not in favour of that."