Russian and Belarusian players banned from a women's tennis tournament in Prague

Russian and Belarusian players will not be allowed to participate in next week’s Prague Open, the organizers of the women’s tennis event said Friday. The announcement came a day after police prevented a Russian player from entering the country, organizers said. Miroslav Malý, the director of the hard-court tournament, didn’t identify the player. Malý said she was the first participant with a Russian passport to arrive in the country. He said organizers approached other Russian and Belarusian players through the Women’s Tennis Association to tell them not to travel to Prague. Aliaksandra Sasnovich of Belarus was to play singles in Prague while three Russians, Diana Shnaider, Polina Kudermetova and Erika Andreeva, were to play in qualifying. The WTA Tour allows Russians and Belarusians to play tournaments as neutral athletes. “Individual WTA players whose nationality is Russian/Belarusian continue to compete on the Tour on a neutral basis. Despite their neutrality, some WTA players are being denied by Czech government authorities the ability to compete at the WTA 250 event scheduled to be held in Prague next week,” the WTA said in a statement on Friday. “WTA rules state that all players must be allowed to compete on the WTA based solely on merit, without discrimination. We will continue to review the situation as we factor important considerations around these complex geopolitical issues.” The Czech government has banned athletes from Russia and Belarus from sports competitions on Czech territory because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Last week, Russian tennis player Vera Zvonareva was banned from entering Poland for a WTA tournament in Warsaw. The WTA also said it “emphatically condemns the war in Ukraine" and “continues to support the Tour’s Ukrainian athletes – as well as all WTA athletes – who face immense challenges as professional athletes while many of their loved ones and their country face attacks from Russia.”