Athletes and Visas: Shouldn’t Athletes be Fast-tracked?
Most of us, I should imagine,
think athletes receive visas quickly so they can travel around the world
competing in their chosen sport. So, it was a great surprise to me to discover
that Russian tennis player Svetlana Kuznetsova was left waiting for her visa
for the US Open Series leading up to the US Open. This visa failed to
materialise, so forcing her to withdraw from the Citi Open, Washington DC, to
avoid being penalized for an unintentional no-show. She has been travelling as
a pro tennis player for 19 years or so. So why now? Not only is she a famous,
two time, grand slam singles winner (US Open; RG) but an incredible athlete.
One only has to look at her Instagram videos to see her off-court and on-court
training to appreciate this. It is, I believe, the most impressive training
regime I’ve ever seen on social media. Indeed, if it were not for social media
we would not be aware of Kuznetsova’s plight. Had she not posted her visa
problems on Instagram, albeit a little too late in the day, we would be unaware
of what she’s going through. This illustrates the importance and positive side
of social media, which is often ignored. There’s far too much emphasis on the
negative, harmful effects of social media. There’s no doubt such an aspect of
social media does exist and controls need to be in place to protect, educate,
support and help people who use it. However, it gave us an opportunity to
support her and make her case heard. Despite this, it has resulted in Kuznetsova
being unable to defend her Citi Open title in Washington DC. This impacts on
her negatively. She will lose the points she acquired last year through winning
the title. As a result, Kuznetsova will drop in the world rankings through no
fault of her own. On the contrary, she alerted the right organizations (WTA;
USTA; US Consulate) to explain her situation and as far as I understand, she
did not receive the relevant feedback and assistance. She certainly applied in
plenty of time! Her drop in the rankings will take her further away from the
top 100, the magic number. Currently she is 108th in the world. It
means that she could struggle to even be in the main draw at the US Open, which
she won in 2004, while still a teenager (19years old). Now she has been given a
visa to the US we look forward to her competing there, especially in the US
Open. Such an elite athlete who can run every ball down, has a complete,
powerful all-round game (enabling her to play every shot in the book and more) and
comes from a world class athletic background should surely be world number 1!
I think that Kuznetsova’s case
shows how one simple act of depriving an athlete of a visa to do their job, has
severe repercussions on their career. Possibly even causing them psychological
harm through the stress they’ve had to endure. Kuznetsova must have been asking
herself the question – why? Where does the fault lie? Does it lie with the
tennis world or politics? Several other Russian players (Zvonareva;
Pavlyuchenkova; Alexandrova; Gasparyan; Potapova) are in the Citi Open draw who
also must have needed to apply for the same visa as Kuznetsova – why did theirs
come through in time but her one didn’t? The only marked difference is
Kuznetsova is the defending champion which surely should have made it easier
not harder to obtain a visa. It would have been a nice gesture if the
tournament had reversed Kuznetsova’s withdrawal by offering her a wildcard
(main draw), giving her time to arrive from Russia by the Tuesday. Since they
haven’t done that, I think Kuznetsova should be compensated so that she does
not automatically lose all her points gained last year. Perhaps she could
retain her world ranking next Monday and be given a main draw spot in a replacement
tournament. She has already lost out financially by being prevented from
competing. Kuznetsova was fit, healthy and ready to compete, and had entered
the tournament with every intention of defending her title. She was merely
prevented from doing so for reasons beyond her control. She did also keep in
touch and inform all the relevant people about her situation.
Maybe it’s time athletes were
given a fast-track response to their visa application which they are clearly
requesting in order to do their job - compete! The country they live in or
represent is irrelevant. Sports should be, but often isn’t, free from politics.
Athletes should not be pawns in political strife between nations, especially
when the athlete is in an individual sport, rather than a team sport, where
nationalism rears its head more eagerly. I support English, Canadian and Czech teams
whatever the sport but I also support teams and individual players irrespective
of their nationality whom I admire for their talent, athleticism and sheer
determination eg:
Tennis: Ostapenko, Giorgi, van
Uytvanck, Venus and Serena, Larsson, Townsend, Kuznetsova, Sharapova, Hogenkamp
Netball: Australia (Diamonds),
New Zealand (Silver Ferns), Scotland (Thistles), Zimbabwe (Gems), Singapore
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