Stan Wawrinka and Dominik Stricker play a show tournament in Saudi Arabia. Sports are irrelevant, but money is easy.
This is disappointing. Especially at a time when moral issues and the human rights situation in the Arabian Peninsula are being discussed in connection with the World Cup in Qatar.
If it’s already absurd that the Qataris are allowed to use a World Cup stage for their sports wash, then the issue of the tennis tournament in Riyadh is even more problematic.
The event in the Diriyah area does not award world ranking points, there is no race for Formula 1 World Championship points, there is no fight for glory, honor and medals at the World Championships in Athletics. So morally immaculate sports officials awarded the competition to a dubious owner.
No, here tennis stars from Zverev to Tsitsipas can be used for a hefty amount of money by a regime that ranks 152 out of 167 in The Economist’s Democracy Index, just behind Belarus and Uzbekistan and just ahead of Eritrea. While football professionals and Formula 1 stars rightly point out that they are just doing their job on controversial grounds, this excuse does not extend to tennis heroes.
There aren’t many possible explanations left: either they don’t care. Or they are naive. Both are a little sad.