Tarpischev, President of the Russian Tennis Federation: "We have managed to rebuild ourselves".

Since the start of the invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops in February 2022, Russia has been virtually banned from all sporting competitions.

In tennis, Russian athletes were excluded from all Wimbledon tables that same year, and have been playing under neutral banners at tournaments ever since.

In other words, when their names are displayed, only a white flag is shown instead of the Russian one.

President of the Russian Tennis Federation since 1999, former player Shamil Tarpischev spoke out about this situation, which has been going on for almost three years now.

"We've managed to rebuild ourselves, yes. We don't play in team competitions, that's true, we play under a neutral flag.

But despite that, our tennis players are playing, and everyone knows they're Russians. It's the only sport today that's raising Russia's profile, because we play everywhere.

It's no coincidence that we have two players in the top 10 of the ATP rankings (Medvedev and Rublev).

The girls had a period when seven of our players were in the top 30 during the year. The future prospects are good for our tennis," the former world 164th assured the TASS media.