Russian tennis player Andrey Rublev has called for unity among the sport's major bodies and urged tournament officials to work alongside lawmakers in order to avoid 'destroying tennis.'
Rublev, 24, is one of those athletes from Russia and Belarus who will be banned from Wimbledon this year as a result of the former's ongoing invasion of Ukraine. In response to the All England Club 's decision to restrict players from those countries, the ATP opted to strip SW19 of its ranking points.
It continues a disjointed year of tennis that was already rocked by Novak Djokovic 's expulsion from the Australian Open over his Covid-19 vaccine stance. Some high-profile players are now understood to be considering boycotting Wimbledon, but Rublev said the "toxic relationship" between them and the ATP is futile.
