Oliver Brown: Wimbledon ban for Russia's Daniil Medvedev the only viable option

Daniil Medvedev has shown no sign of publicly denouncing Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Photo / Photosport

OPINION:

When Daniil Medvedev suggested he might swerve this year's Wimbledon in favour of hard-court tournaments in Moscow, it looked nothing more than a daft threat borne of rage at a disrespectful Melbourne crowd.

But the impression grows that this decision is, in ways he could not possibly have foreseen at an Australian Open final held 25 days before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, about to be taken out of his hands. This week's message from British sports minister Nigel Huddleston was unambiguous: that unless the men's world No 1 disavows Vladimir Putin, the Government does not want him darkening the All England Club's doors.

I sympathise with the view that this smacks uncomfortably of the policing of thought. In a year when Novak Djokovic has been chased out of Australia on the spurious pretext that his presence would embolden armies of anti-vaxxers to seize the country's streets, tennis needs fewer intrusions upon individual freedom of conscience, not more. But I can also see legitimate reasons for unease at Medvedev rolling up for the grand slam summer as if nothing has happened.

He is, after all, the most highly visible sporting representative of a country committing heinous atrocities against its neighbour. The fact that he cannot compete under the Russian flag is meaningless, given that a triumph at either the French Open or Wimbledon would inevitably be spun as a propaganda coup for Putin.

If the calls for him to denounce his nation's president seem gratuitous, then that is because his comments on the conflict to date have been vanilla, limited to "no war" rhetoric that offends Ukrainian players for whom war is a hideous, unprovoked reality.

Take the view of 19-year-old Marta Kostyuk, born in Kyiv, part of a generation whose prime of life is being stolen by the megalomaniac in the Kremlin.

At Indian Wells, she claimed she had not received even the mildest expression of locker-room support from her Russian peers.

"None have told me they're sorry for what their country is doing to mine," she said. "I didn't hear any apologies. To me, that's shocking. You don't have to be involved in politics to behave like a human being. It hurts me every time I arrive at the stadium and see all these Russian players."

Her distress was self-evident. So, too, was that of Ukrainian gymnast Illia Kovtun, forced to accept a World Cup gold medal this month alongside Russia's Ivan Kuliak, who stitched a 'Z' symbol on his leotard to denote support for Putin's annihilation of his rival's homeland.

Russian athlete Ivan Kuliak with a 'Z' symbol on his singlet. Photo / Claro Sports

The problem is that, for all the outrage his gesture has attracted, nobody is able to settle on a suitable punishment. Yes, you can fine him, rescind his medal, castigate him for his stupidity. But he is clearly acting out of warped patriotic conviction. No sooner did he face global condemnation than he claimed he would happily do it all over again.

There is a message here, and it is that half-measures do not work. You can try to compel Medvedev to disown Putin, but if he does not wish to – and the displaying, until recently, of Russian flags on his social media accounts suggests a man disinclined – it is pointless.

This then leaves a binary equation: do you let him and his compatriots sail on under such frivolous penalties as the loss of a flag, to the horror of their Ukrainian opponents, or do you ban them altogether?

I reach this conclusion not with any enthusiasm, but a ban increasingly appears the only viable option. Sporting isolation succeeds when it is "all in", or not at all.

For eight years post-Sochi, the International Olympic Committee feebly calculated it could shame Russia for rampant doping by rebranding their athletes under a different banner or by denying them an announcement at the opening ceremony.

Then along came Kamila Valieva, a 15-year-old figure skating champion whose positive test for a banned heart-drug plunged a second Winter Games into disgrace.

Recommending a ban on Russian tennis players is not some vindictive prescription by the Western commentariat. Rather, it is the explicit advice of the IOC, which, for all its deficiencies, is required to act as sport's ultimate arbiter at times like these. And its counsel is that "international sports federations and sports event organisers do not invite or allow the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes". So far, tennis, swimming and gymnastics are among the few sports proclaiming themselves as exceptions to this judgment.

One uniform reaction to the horrors unleashed by Putin is the desire to render his regime, whether by sanctions or by exclusion, a global pariah.

Sport has its role to play on this front: Russia has taken its football team's ban from next week's World Cup play-offs extremely badly, as its appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport shows.

It is a pressure that must continue to be applied. Telling Medvedev what to say and how to say it is not the answer, though. If nothing else, an expression of dissent carries a mounting risk of reprisals. In a signal that the repressive apparatus of the Russian state is about to be extended, Putin has now vowed to rid the country of pro-Western "traitors" and "scum".

Equally, the status quo cannot stand – not when the involvement of Russians stirs such anguish on a daily basis for Ukrainian tennis players, including Kostyuk.

"I will be concise: look at other sports," she said. "Look at what they decided. That's all."

All decided, however reluctantly, on bans. Yes, this might be terribly unfair on Medvedev et al, who are guilty of nothing more than having been born in Russia. But the bitter truth is that in their name, millions are being driven from their homes and being bombed into oblivion, all guilty of nothing more than having been born in Ukraine. Which, frankly, is the graver injustice?