Andrey Rublev of Russia waves to the crowd after losing his semifinal match against Taylor Fritz of the United States at the BNP Paribas Open at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden in Indian Wells, Calif., Saturday, March 19, 2022.
Russian tennis star Andrey Rublev has a proposal to compete at Wimbledon in June after the prestigious grass court event announced the ban of Russian and Belarusian players.
The world No. 8 said at a press conference on Thursday that he would like the option to play and would donate all his earnings at the Grand Slam to humanitarian efforts in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
"And if there is a statement that we need to sign ... to give all the prize money to humanitarian help -- to the families who are suffering, to the kids who [are] suffering, [we'll do that],” Rublev proposed.
The 24-year-old said that the motion would "at least ... show that [the British] government is standing for peace, and they really want to do action to help."
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Rublev has been one of the most vocal Russian tennis players since the crisis began two months ago. In February, he wrote "no war please" on a TV camera,
He called the decision to ban Russian and Belarusian tennis players from Wimbledon was "completely discrimination."
Another Russian tennis player, No. 26 Karen Khachanov, also had some thoughts on Wimbledon's decision.
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"I'm just really sad -- really sad, disappointed, devastated that these things are happening right now for everybody and that we came to this point," the 25-year-old said. "For me, it's one of the nicest tournaments in the world," he added.
The exclusion of tennis players in the women’s top 50 include: No. 4 Aryna Sabalenka, No. 15. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, No. 18 Victoria Azarenka, No. 26 Daria Kasatkina, No. 29 Veronika Kudermetova, No. 31 Liudmila Samonova, No. 30 Ekaterina Alexandrova and No. 50 Aliaksandra Sasnovich.
On the men's side, it includes: No. 2 Daniil Medvedev, No. 8 Andrey Rublev, No. 26 Karen Khachanov, No. 30 Aslan Karatsev and No. 44 Ilya Ivashka.
Wimbledon is set to run from June 27 to July 10 at the All England Club in London.
