Controversy in Western and Southern Open match
Controversy in Western and Southern Open match: Near the Cincinnati match, there was a controversy when a woman with a Ukrainian flag was thrown out. As per the reports from the local, the fan says she was forced to leave because the Ukrainian flag was bothering Russian players.
The woman holding the flag was an American Hailing from Uzbekistan. She was watching the qualifying match for Women’s singles. The match was held between Anastasia Potapova and Anna Kalinskaya. When the umpire asked her to remove the flag she refused immediately. She was told that the police will be called if she does not leave.
The conversation between fan and Umpire
The Umpire said,” You are not being nice, you need to put it away.” The fans say the message that I got was that Russian players were agitated. So I said, ” I’m not putting it away.” They kept playing for a minute and then the game was stopped. After that card came to me and said ” ma’am you need to leave or I am going to call the cops.”
However later Western and Southern open released an official statement to ESPN saying ” The flag was exceeding the size restrictions that’s why the woman was asked to leave.”
As per the bag policy on Western and Southern open’s website, flags or banners of more than 18 ×18 are prohibited. Therefore the fan was asked to remove the flag from the ground and after doing that, they were allowed to attend the tournament.
As far as the chair Umpire inquiry is concerned it should be directed to the WTA tour.
Currently, Ukraine and Russia are at war against each other. This incident got a strong reaction from Ukrainian player Alex Dolgopolov.
He tweeted ” Our country is drowning blood, barbaric violence and no Russian will bully a silent fan with a Ukrainian flag” Have some respect.
WTA has not released any statement on this incident.