It's time to stop pretending athletes aren't from Russia and Belarus

It was really childish when it first began but now here we are, years later, and it just seems like a tantrum that a kid was throwing and now out of spite and stubbornness, we are refusing to go back on our stupid decision out of pride.

Tennis, quite some time ago decided to play politics and initially to some degree was going to outright ban anyone from Russia and their ally Belarus from participating in international tennis tournaments. This wasn't doing to work out very well for the people who were interested in the top rankings actually containing the top ranked people though seeing as how a great many of the top ten in men and women just happened to be from those countries.

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In 2022 Wimbledon organizers outright refused to allow them to compete at all but there was a great deal of backlash about this from the public and most people who aren't consumed by politics. The world number 1 in women and the world number 2 in men (among others) were from Russia and Belarus at the time so the people who were actually winning the tournament, which would have been tournaments had the ruling not been overturned, wouldn't have REALLY been the champions since they weren't facing the actual best players in the world.

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Regardless of how you feel about the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, one thing is for certain: Danlil Medvedev and Aryna Sabalenka don't have a whole hell of a lot to do with it.

The non-inclusion of their nation's flags accomplishes absolutely nothing, as does the forcing of the players to state that they are competing not with a nation but instead or of "neutral" origin. This is playground-level stuff going on here.

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For a while on the online stats they also wouldn't talk about where the person was born if they were born in either country but thank god that went away because it was a level of petty that has no place in sport. We all know where they are from and we are aware that their countries haven't been disbanded so what is the point of all this? To remind us that organizations that aren't supposed to be at all involved in politics are in fact involved in politics and playing favorites to certain nations? I know there is plenty of information out there that points to the Italians getting preferential treatment and I am sure that this is just a coincidence that the president of the ATP is also Italian. hmmmmm?

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Doubling down on their pettiness instead of recognizing that it is stupid has been achieved as they also refuse to put the initials of the country of origin on the awards as well.

No matter how you feel about the conflict in whatever part of the world I think and "adult" approach to all of this would be to understand that not allowing a certain country's citizens to attend it really dumb, and to be childish to the point of saying "ok, you can come but you can't display your flag or ever say the name of your nation" is just a child altering the rules to barely comply with what their parents told them they have to.

It's stupid, it accomplishes absolutely nothing, and it needs to stop.