The winner of the Australian Open was a Belarusian tennis player
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The winner of the Australian Open was a Belarusian tennis player
Belarusian Aryna Sobolenko won the Australian Open tennis championship. The athlete from Belarus performed under a neutral flag, the BBC reports.
In the final, she beat 23-year-old Elena Rybakina, who plays for Kazakhstan, with a score of 4:6, 6:3, 6:4. The match lasted 2 hours 29 minutes.
This is the first success of the 24-year-old athlete at the Grand Slam tournaments.
In the Australian championship, Russians and Belarusians took part “on the conditions of neutrality” – without specifying the country, as well as the flag and anthem.
In addition, the organizers of the championship banned the bringing of Russian and Belarusian flags after the incident on the first day of the tournament.
The Russian flag appeared in the stands during the match between the Russian Kamilla Rakhimova and the Ukrainian Kateryna Byndl. Ukrainian fans claim that the Ukrainian tennis player was provoked and teased, after which they released the security and the police.
Earlier, at the post-match press conference, Sobolenko said that she understands why flags can upset Ukrainian fans: “I always thought that sport is outside of politics, but if it’s better for everyone, then it’s good.”
However, the scandals at the tournament continued. The father of 21-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic watched his son’s semi-final match at the Australian Open from home so as not to cause trouble. This happened because of a photo of Djokovic Sr. with a fan wearing clothes with the symbol “Z”.
The Serbian athlete himself did not comment on the situation. In the photo that caused a scandal, Srdjan Djokovic poses with Russian fans after the quarter-final between Novak and Russian tennis player Andrey Rublev. One of the fans in the photo is holding a Russian flag with a portrait of Vladimir Putin and wearing a T-shirt with the propaganda symbol “Z”.
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