WTA Chief Simon warns Wimbledon about 'strong reaction'

WTA CEO Steve Simon called Wimbledon's actions "extremely disappointing" and promised them they will see some "strong reaction" for breaking tennis laws.

On Wednesday, Wimbledon announced Russian and Belarusian players have been banned from competing at The Championships this year. Shortly after the Wimbledon announcement, the LTA announced Russian and Belarusian players won't be allowed to compete in British events during the grass season. Speaking in the Tennis Podcast, WTA Chief Steve Simon said:

“People take the position that sports and politics shouldn’t match and shouldn’t be intertwined, but that’s not the reality. At times sports does cross into politics and here is a situation where politics is crossing into sports. It is real life."

He further said:

“The announcement that came out was extremely disappointing, to say the least. The one thing that this sport has always agreed upon, we don’t agree on a lot of things, but the one thing we have always been united on was that entry into our events – ITF, ATP, WTA, Grand Slams, it doesn’t matter – has always been based up on merit and without discrimination."

He finished off with:

“The Wimbledon decision is against the Grand Slam rules as well as the Grand Slam agreement that we have. The LTA, which has WTA sanctioned events, the decision is in violation of the WTA bylaws and rules with respect to entry of athletes. So we do have the ability to react to both of those. We don’t have the same jurisdiction over the Grand Slams as we do our own sanctioned events. We have precedents where these situations may have occurred where fines and tournament sanctions have been imposed. So we will be evaluating how we proceed. I do think you’ll see some strong reactions that will come from us but what those are and how far they’ll go is still to be determined”.