Wimbledon Appeals WTA Fine Over Russia Ban

The All England Club is appealing a fine imposed by the WTA women's professional tennis tour for banning Russian and Belarusian players from tournaments in Britain.

In April, WTA announced it "strongly condemns the actions that have been taken by Russia and its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine" and that the organization is "disappointed in announcement by the AELTC and the LTA to ban individual athletes who are from Russia and Belarus from competing in the upcoming UK grass court events."

"As the WTA has consistently stated, individual athletes should not be penalized or prevented from competing due to where they are from, or the decisions made by the governments of their countries," the April announcement reads.

As a response to the LTA and Wimbledon's decision to ban Russian and Belarusian players from WTA events during the British grass-court season, the WTA Tour is applying a $1,000,000 fine according to Daily Mail.

The outlet reported that there was a $250,000 fine for the LTA and a $750,000 fine for the All England Club, based on a decision from the WTA Board.

"It's the subject of a legal process, so I can't comment specifically on that," All England Club CEO Sally Bolton said Monday. "We stand by the decision we made. We're deeply disappointed at the reaction of the tours to that decision, and I probably can't say any more than that at this point in time, I'm afraid."

Bolton said the club appealed its WTA fine, per ESPN. She said they are waiting to hear from the ATP men's tour to see if they were assessed a penalty.

Daily Mail reports that in addition to the fines, the WTA and ATP Tours have also decided not to award ranking points at Wimbledon, though they did not withdraw ranking points from the warmup tour events.

Tennis.com reports that along with Wimbledon, there are British grass-court events in Birmingham, Nottingham and Eastbourne on the women's tour.