Wimbledon starts today. And as far as the ATP is concerned, it’s just an exhibition
Lesson summary
Hi there everyone, I’m Jeff and this is Plain English, where we help you upgrade your English with current events and trending topics. JR is the producer and he has uploaded the full lesson to PlainEnglish.com/480.
Coming up today: The Wimbledon tennis tournament traces its roots to 1877 and is considered the most prestigious tournament in the world. But this year, the governing body of tennis isn’t giving players any points for their performance in Wimbledon. And it’s just one example of how sports organizations are grappling with how to respond to political developments.
In the second half of today’s lesson, I’ll show you how to use the phrasal verb “hand out” and we have a quote of the week. Let’s get going.
Breach in tennis over Wimbledon’s exclusion of Russian players
Tennis and golf are unique in the sporting world because they are individual, and not team, sports. Tennis and golf players are in charge of their own careers: they don’t have a boss and they don’t have a contract. They can’t be traded. Nobody can tell them when to play or when not to play; they are their own bosses.
Both these sports typically have few governance issues and few controversies. The controversies around other sports—player safety, gambling, political messaging, foreign team ownership, corruption—these controversies have typically not touched tennis and golf. But this year, both sports are caught up in major political controversies.
In tennis, the Wimbledon tournament starts today, June 27. There will be no players from Russia or Belarus. That’s the result of a tournament rule this year, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Wimbledon was under pressure from the U.K. government to either ban Russian and Belarussian players or make them sign a statement renouncing the war.
The tournament believed that making players sign statements opposing the war could put players or their families in danger with their home governments. So Wimbledon decided not to allow any players from Russia or Belarus to compete in 2022.
That didn’t sit well with the ATP, the Association of Tennis Professionals. The ATP is the closest thing to a governing body of tennis; it’s like FIFA, only for tennis players. The ATP gives each player ranking points for their performance in tournaments throughout the year. For example, this year Rafael Nadal won the French Open; he got 2,000 points. Norwegian Casper Ruud came in second place, he got 1,200 points. The players who were knocked out earlier got fewer points.
The four “Grand Slam” tournaments award the most points in total. Behind them are several other tiers of tournaments that provide different amounts of points.
So when you hear someone say that Novak Djokovic is the number one tennis player in the world, it means that he currently has the most ranking points in the ATP, based on how he has done in the tournaments in the previous twelve months.
You can see how the ATP thought that the whole ranking points system this year would be unfair. And as a Grand Slam event, Wimbledon is one of four events to provide the biggest points value in the player rankings. So let’s take the case of Russian Daniil Medvedev, currently number two in the world. He’s not allowed to participate in Wimbledon. But if all his competitors participate, he would be pushed down the rankings because his peers would win points while he would not.
You might be asking why this is important. Does it really matter how the players are ranked? Well, the answer is yes: the ATP rankings determine a lot about the game off the court. For example, not every tennis player can play in every tournament. So tournaments determine who’s allowed to play based on the ranking points. If you have more points, you’ll get into tournaments that pay better and give more exposure.
What’s more, the tournament seeding also depends on ranking points. The seeding is about a player’s position in the tournament structure. The fewer the points, the worse your position in the tournament structure, and the harder it is to win. Both of these factors mean that losing ranking points can have a real impact on a player’s season and earnings.
So the ATP decided that, in the interest of fairness, if Russian players aren’t allowed to play in Wimbledon, and if Russian players don’t have the chance to win those valuable points, then nobody will win the points. In short, the ATP stripped Wimbledon of its ability to award points this year.
Wimbledon will still happen: it will still be on television, there will still be a trophy, there will be prize money handed out . But none of the players in this year’s tournament will earn any ATP points. As far as official tennis is concerned, Wimbledon is just for fun this year.
This was a big disruption to the relative calm of professional tennis. Wimbledon is one of four major events, and it has been punished by the sport’s governing body. Tennis players generally opposed Wimbledon’s move to disallow Russian and Belarussian players, but so far nobody has pulled out of Wimbledon as a form of protest. Most players will still go to Wimbledon anyway because they want the exposure, the prestige, and, let’s face it, a shot at the money.
Now if you think the controversy in tennis is bad, just wait until you hear what’s going on in golf. I’ll tell you about that next week.
Where to draw the line?
Wimbledon, the tournament, was under pressure to do this from the British government, so I don’t think you can blame Wimbledon. Should you blame the U.K., though? Other sports have banned Russia and Belarus from participating. In football, Russia was banned from the UEFA championships and can’t compete in the World Cup. International ice hockey canceled a tournament scheduled to be in Russia. Russian figure skaters were excluded from figure skating championships. Formula 1 pulled out of Russia.
There’s no great place to draw the line, but if I had to choose, here’s what I would say: Definitely don’t hold events in a sanctioned country like Belarus or Russia. Exclude a national team playing under the country’s flag, like a football team. Let an individual athlete compete as himself or herself, but keep the sanctioned country’s name and flag off the graphics and out of official publications and announcements.
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