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Tennis News –
A Russian journalist was among the organisers of the ATP tournament that took place in autumn 2022. Earlier in his blog he repeatedly made statements about the war against UkraineA missile strike on the UK and the lifting of tennis sanctions after Russia’s success in the war. Russian journalist, a vocal supporter of his army, worked at the ATP tournament last year The positive attitude towards Russian and Belarusian staff was eloquently shown by the fact that an experienced Russian management team worked at the ATP tournament in Tel Aviv last September, including journalist Mikhail Ivanov. In fact, Ivanov is not only a journalist, because in addition to writing tennis news, he was the head of the press center at Russian ATP/WTA tournaments and also served as a press officer for Russian national tennis teams at the ITF team tournaments. The absence of official information on the ATP Tel Aviv tournament website makes it impossible to state this officially, but a few observations make it clear that Mikhail Ivanov was not just a simple journalist in Israel. The photos show him sitting next to the players opposite the media during press conferences, he was the one who conducted on-court interviews, and at the end of the tournament, he was the guy leading the awards ceremony (you can re-watch it and hear that even a commentator introduced him, saying that Mikhail Ivanov hosts the ceremony). Another photo shows the "ORG" mark on Ivanov's accreditation, which suggests that Ivanov is not just working at the tournament as a journalist, but he is also a member of the tournament team. It should be reminded that this year, the owner of the tournament, Russian-Israeli billionaire Mikhail Miralishvili, linked a long time ago, but also in recent years, to Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a Wagner PMC founder, was subject to Ukrainian sanctions. Recently he has started to sell his business in Russia. Whether this is due to his desire to avoid being on the sanctions lists of other countries and to get out of the sanctions in Ukraine, journalists of business outlets have not been able to clarify the nature of his actions. The tournament in Tel Aviv has other parallels with the tournament in St. Petersburg, in addition to Miralishvili and Ivanov, but we’ll talk about that later.  According to the Mass Information Institute in Ukraine, at least 8 Ukrainian journalists were killed while performing their professional duties since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, 24 were killed while defending their country or as a result of Russian shelling or torture. While our Ukrainian Tennis (BTU) team has not been able to attend tournaments abroad for the second year in a row due to Russia's war against Ukraine, Mikhail Ivanov, despite all his statements, has a position at the ATP tournament. This season, the Watergen Open will be held again, so he has a good chance to work there for the second time. Ivanov shares his thoughts on the war in detail in his own blog for the Tennis Weekend magazine as an editor-in-chief. Does anybody in the ATP do minimal checks? Or is it because of the lack of knowledge of the Russian language in the men's tour, as well as Polish language at Roland Garros, that no one could understand what was going on? In any case, obviously there was no problem with Ivanov working at the tournament abroad. About a month before him doing his job at the ATP tournament in Israel, Mikhail Ivanov expressed confidence that Russia's victory in the war would lead to the lifting of tennis sanctions. Let us quote the author: "And the anthem will be returned to us and the 'ban [бан]' (what a non-Russian word), that is, the ban, will be lifted when we successfully complete the special operation in Ukraine, having demilitarised and denazified it." Ivanov believes that the tennis sanctions, anti-war declarations and calls by Ukrainian players to condemn the war have one goal, "like all sanctions in the economic, cultural and educational spheres, which is very clear: to cause dissatisfaction among Russian citizens, here, specifically, Russian tennis players and tennis fans, with the actions of the Russian President, to encourage Russian players and coaches to make protest statements, thereby weakening the already not-so-unshakable unity of the nation at such a critical time for Russia…". "There is no limit to the hypocrisy and duplicity of international tennis officials," Mikhail Ivanov is outraged. - "Without delving into the essence of the issue - the reasons for Russia's special operation - they clearly follow the lead of the United States and the European Union, trying to portray our country as a bloody aggressor, and take the current de facto Nazi regime in Ukraine under their protection. Today, the West is ready to justify any, even the most odious, phenomena in modern Ukraine, as long as it contributes to their main goal - weakening Russia." "Yes, Russian sport and Russian tennis are in a difficult position. They want to force us to renounce our country at this time of severe challenges. They want us to take to the streets and put pressure on our president." At the same time, Mikhail Ivanov does not understand how the players can disassociate themselves from their states’ support. "What is meant by support? Isn't Vladimir Putin's congratulatory telegram to Daniil Medvedev after his victory at the 2020 Nitto ATP Finals is a support, even if it is purely moral? In addition, everyone knows that the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, personally oversees Belarusian tennis, and the Belarusian Tennis Federation at some point helped its players financially (and the Russian Federation too) - can this be considered support from Presidents Lukashenko and Putin?".  Ivanov admits that Russian players "are forced to use general humanitarian terms so that sanctions against them are not further tightened. But the good news is that they have become tougher in their comments. For example, Rublev found the right words about the decision of the British authorities and Wimbledon organisers, calling it discriminatory. "We are not here to talk about politics," Rublev said, "because I don't understand anything about it. I'm just a Russian, I was born in Russia and I've lived all my life in Russia. I just want to show that we are good people." And this is certainly true. Russians are generally good people, kind - sometimes too kind, even to the enemy. They are patient, they endure for a long time, but when their patience runs out, they are unstoppable," Mikhail Ivanov concludes. At the same time, this "tennis expert" wonders how Amelie Mauresmo, and other tennis executives, could really thought that Russian players did not understand the risk of voicing their solidarity with their own people and their army out loud. "It's quite a strange situation, because the Russians have repeatedly spoken out about the special operation, they make abstractly pacifist statements that they are against (the war). Rublev and Medvedev said it, many Russian tennis players said it. So, I don't know - do they [the organisers] really expect someone to openly say: yes, I support the special operation?". "We need to be steadfast and wait patiently until the Russian special operation is successfully completed. This itself will calm many people down. The anti-Russian hysteria, particularly in the tennis world, will sooner or later come to naught. If we don't give up and fall into abstract humanism and pacifism, like our other tennis professionals, who, while rightly condemning the war as such (who can argue that war is terrible), do not even seek to delve into the essence and history of the current conflict in Ukraine, trying to sit on two chairs..." Ivanov explains why Russian players cannot speak out publicly about the war in his own response to Dayana Yastremska's call for tennis players not to remain silent last spring.  "Dayana, we respond for all Russian players who are forced to make diplomatic statements because they cannot condemn their home country, Russia, and they cannot openly support it, otherwise they will be banned from tournaments altogether, - Ivanov writes. - The Russians are not deaf to the suffering of the Ukrainian people, whom NATO and its vanguard, the USA, are using as cannon fodder to weaken, and even destroy, Russia [...]. War is terrible, but we were left with no choice but to launch a preemptive strike against the Nazi Kyiv regime, which was preparing to attack Donbas and Crimea. Therefore, we need to leave the Russian players alone and save them from your calls to 'not be silent'. It is better to keep quiet yourself." Mikhail Ivanov, while criticising last year's statement by Alex Dolgopolov that he was going to the frontline and was ready to kill the occupiers, emphasizes that "Russian tennis players (so far) are behaving in a much peaceful manner, which shouldn’t be seen as an example, but although they are forced to manoeuvre in order not to lose access to competitions and prize money paid for participation in them".. Now the refusal of Ukrainians to shake hands with representatives of the aggressor states, according to Ivanov, is "small pricks typical of small nations, which are like the "little dog - puppy to old age". Great nations and great countries, like Russia, have a broader and more noble nature. Why should we lower ourselves to 'not shaking hands'?". Last year in his posts Mikhail Ivanov also reflected on how Russian sports officials could force the British government not to insist that tennis players should sign a statement condemning the war. "But how can they really prevent this so the UK sports - and other UK authorities - will get it? Unless they launch the Kinzhal missile in direction of the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson residence," Ivanov writes. ... That’s how it work we guess: ATP is fining the British Tennis for banning Russians, and an employee of (the very same) ATP tournament is thinking about firing missiles at this country? Ivanov sees this year's decision to let the representatives of Russia and Belarus to play on British courts as an unwillingness to pay new fines. "When we hit the enemy where it hurts the most - the wallet - everything changed immediately. Right in the eye. And we are hitting the other enemy with the Solntsepek heavy flamethrower systems, Giatsint field guns, Gvozdika self-propelled howitzer and other weapons. And the sooner we manage to complete the SVO, the higher the chances of Russian tennis players putting away that neutral status and regaining their anthem, national kits with the word "Russia" and flag. I don't even want to think about any other scenario." By the way, Mikhail Ivanov also had words to say... ... about Italy: "The ATP is led by Andrea Gaudenzi, an ex-player from Italy, a country that [... ] over the past few centuries has lost all the wars in which it has participated, and now is crammed with NATO bases and has virtually no state sovereignty" ... as well as about the host country of Roland Garros and the upcoming Olympics – France: a country "which once, with the light hand of Maréchal Pétain, fell like a sluttish chick under Hitler and the whole of fascist Germany for four long years" ... and another Grand Slam tournament host, Australia. Mikhail Ivanov dislikes it ardently because of the fans who did not support Daniil Medvedev in his match against Rafael Nadal: "We must remember who emigrated to Australia and inhabited it: escaped convicts and other scum. Not the cream of society. It's in the genes. That's why the culture of cheering and culture in general is so low”  Did the tennis players from all these countries feel comfortable with a man sitting next to them in the press room at the tournament? By the way last December Ivanov worked at the St. Petersburg exhibition tennis tournament. According to the tournament director, ATP and WTA had no problem with their players taking part in this event in Russia. In Mikhail Ivanov's opinion “the temporary cancellation of the ATP and WTA tournaments in Russia”, where he worked, is not as bad as “the bullets and shells that are flying at Russian soldiers who are defending our security and state sovereignty at the risk of their lives, which sooner or later would be encroached upon by the United States and its creature – NATO, and from the territory of once brotherly Ukraine, which, when the special operation is over, will again make peace with us, albeit not immediately. Do not even doubt it". And we have more and more doubts and there are more and more questions to the tennis governing bodies. So while Steve Simon’s proper address to the Ukrainian players’ question (whether or not it’s ok if Russian players who support or justify Russia’s war/government/army you name it are on tour) is still pending, what will ATP say if anything? A proper and qualified check should have been done.  And it’s not just about Mikhail Ivanov. What exactly Natalia Kamelzon was doing at the tournament? Who should know this if not you, ATP? 2022 ATP Tel Aviv Watergen Open Management team Tournament Director / Olesya Gankevich (was she even there, ATP?) / prev. St. Petersburg Open dir. Referee / Valery Lutkov ATP Supervisor / Hans-Juergen Ochs Tour Manager / Konstantin Haerle ATP: Chairman / Andrea Gaudenzi; Chief Executive Officer / Massimo Calvelli At the moment, "collective tennis" has proven time and time again that it is not much different from, let’s say, the fencing governing body, and no amount of ribbons and blue and yellow hearts in tweets can hide this. However, tennis could at least be honest that they just don’t care to check all the posts, interviews, comments etc or even worse – they’d welcome the Putin supporters and Russian armed forces admirers under their umbrella because they just don’t mind? |
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