Russian tennis player Natela Dzalamidze, number 43 in the world in the WTA doubles ranking, has changed her nationality in order to participate in the Wimbledon tournament, according to the British newspaper The Times on Sunday.
According to the publication, the 29-year-old, who will now compete under the Georgia flag, will be in the doubles tournament at Wimbledon alongside Serbian Aleksandra Krunic.
As a reaction to the Russian military invasion of Ukraine, the organizers of the Grand Slam on grass decided in April to exclude all tennis players from Russia and Belarus from its 2022 edition.
Quoted by The Times, a spokesman for the All England Club, which organizes Wimbledon, said the tournament’s management could not issue an immediate reaction to the news of Dzalamidze’s change of nationality.
“The nationality of a player, defined by the flag under which he participates in professional events, is a recognized process that is managed by the circuits (the ATP for men’s tennis and the WTA for women) and the International Tennis Federation”, he recalled.
The Wimbledon tournament starts on the 27th of June. With the Russians and Belarusians vetoed, the ATP and WTA announced that they will not distribute points for their rankings in this edition of the Grand Slam.
The biggest absences with this veto will be the leader of the men’s circuit, the Russian Daniil Medvedev, and the Belarusian Victoria Azarenka, former number 1 in the world.
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