Tennis Governing Bodies, Grand Slams Donate $700K To Ukraine Relief Fund
Tuesday, March 8, 2022 at 06:01PM By Barry Janoff
March 8, 2022: Having already condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and taken steps to remove Russian and Belarusian flags and symbols from all events — as well as banning their respective tennis federations from international competition — tennis’ leading organizations and the sport’s four Grand Slams said they are making a joint charitable donation of $700,000 to “support the humanitarian relief efforts for the war in Ukraine.”
The ATP Tour, Hologic WTA Tour, International Tennis Federation and the four Grand Slams — the Australian Open, Roland-Garros in Paris, Wimbledon in London and the U.S. Open — will each donate $100,000 to GlobalGiving Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund.
The donation is part of Tennis Plays For Peace, “an initiative to bring the tennis community and fans together to support humanitarian efforts.”
Ukrainian tennis players Elina Svitolina and Sergiy Stakhovsky, who returned to Ukraine to join the reserve army, have produced a video with a message of hope for their country.
The seven bodies said they would "signal support via their social and digital platforms by prominently featuring the Ukraine ribbon icon, with everyone in the tennis ecosystem encouraged to use the hashtag #TennisPlaysforPeace."
In addition, ribbons will be distributed for ATP and WTA players to wear at the BNP Paribas Open tournament in Indian Wells, Calif., a joint ATP-WTA Masters 1000 Tournament now in progress (Tennis Channel).
Players born in Russia or Belarus have had their flags removed on the player list site and will not be addressed by their native nations during the event.
The players that impact include men’s world No. 1 Daniil Medvedev, No. 6 Andrey Rublev, Aslan Karatsev (No. 22), Karen Khachanov (No. 25), all Russian born; and women’s world No. 3 Aryna Sabalenka (Belarus) and former world No. 1 Victoria Azarenka (Belarus).
The organizations said that tournaments and tennis federations worldwide — “along with the entire playing spectrum, from juniors, seniors and wheelchair athletes” — will be sent a digital toolkit to help drive awareness and support the relief efforts.
All seven organizations said they “Thank players, tournaments, staff and fans for their incredible efforts already, and further plans for Tennis Plays for Peace will be communicated in the coming weeks.”
Last week, the ITF said that all events in Russia and Belarus have been cancelled, and that the Russian Tennis Federation and Belarus Tennis Federation have been suspended from ITF membership.
The ATP and WTA joined in suspending the VTB Kremlin Cup, scheduled to be held in Moscow in October.
The ITF also said that Russian and Belarusian bodies were banned from "participation in ITF international team competition until further notice.”
"The ITF said it “remains in close contact with the Ukraine Tennis Federation and stands in solidarity with the people of Ukraine.”
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