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0 Tournament organisers at the Cincinnati Open have defended an incident in which a fan wearing a Ukrainian flag was asked to leave mid-match.
During an all-Russian affair between Anna Kalinskaya and Anastasia Potapova, the match was stopped after one of the players complained about a woman, who was sitting courtside draped in the flag, as well as a traditional Ukrainian headdress, known as a vinok.
According to tennis journalist Ben Rothenberg, umpire Morgane Lana approached the woman and said it was “not nice” to be sitting with the flag – to which the fan – named Lola – responded that it was “not nice to invade a country.”.
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After multiple stoppages in play, she left the court, only to later be approached by the head of security at the event.
The official cited a rulebook stipulating that flags could not be over a certain size (46cm x 46cm) – regardless of what nation they represented.
Rothenberg was sceptical of this defence, saying that there had been “similarly sized flags happily waved and displayed around the stadia here for years, most often US and Serbian flags.”
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According to Express UK, the tournament organisers are sticking with that ruling, saying in a statement: “Per the Western & Southern Open’s bag policy, as stated on the tournament’s website, flags or banners larger than 18 x 18 are prohibited. As such, the woman was asked to return her oversized flag to her vehicle.”
Kalinskaya eventually won the qualifying match, 7-5 6-1 – she will play Simona Halep in the first round of the tournament’s main draw tomorrow.
The WTA is yet to comment.
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