On Saturday afternoon, Belarusian-born Aryna Sabalenka will take on American teenager Coco Gauff in the U.S. Open women’s final. On the official ESPN broadcast, the Belarusian flag will be nowhere to be found. On ESPN’s website and app, the flag will accompany her name, just like the home country flag of every other player.
The discrepancy is due to a contrast between ESPN’s editorial standards and the official policy of tennis’ governing body, which has forced athletes from both Russia and Belarus (a close Russian ally) to complete as “neutral athletes” since the start of the Ukraine war. And it’s led ESPN, one of the U.S. Open’s main media partners, to take two different approaches.
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On the live broadcasts, ESPN and ESPN+ are choosing to match the preferences of the International Tennis Federation, the company said in a statement, though it is not obligated to do so. Elsewhere across the ESPN business, including its website, app and studio shows, the Disney unit has chosen to revert to its editorial standards, which includes identifying tennis players by their country.
“ESPN is respecting USTA requests, and International Tennis Federation protocol by graphically using white flags on U.S. Open telecasts to designate Russian and Belarusian players,” ESPN said in a statement. A representative for the USTA, which operates the event, declined to comment.
It’s balancing act for ESPN, which is both a broadcast partner to some of the world’s biggest sporting events, and also a news agency covering those same games. It’s also a strange position for the USTA, which last year brought in $143.6 million, about 27% of its $528.6 million in operating revenue, from its TV contracts.
ESPN isn’t alone here. Sky Sports, which has U.S. Open broadcast rights in the U.K. and Ireland, does show the Russian and Belarusian flags on its own website. Eurosport, which has rights in more than 45 European and Asian countries, does not. (Neither does Wikipedia or Google, which includes scores as part of its search function).
The ITF issued its neutral athlete policy in March of last year, about a week after Russian forces invaded Ukraine. The policy, which aligns with that of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), was designed in part to make it harder for either country to use the success of its athletes as propaganda. The ITF board also withdrew all events from Russia and Belarus until further notice, and suspended the tennis federations of both countries.
Since then, tennis players from Russia and Belarus have been prevented from using any “national insignia or symbol, flag, anthem or any signs of patriotism,” according to the ITF. The ATP and WTA tours, and their tournaments, have followed suit, removing the flags from scoreboards and promotional materials.
Most tennis players who compete as Russians or Belarusians don’t actually live in either country—Sabalenka, for example, resides in Florida—but many have families that do, and there is a considerable amount of tension on both the ATP and WTA tours surrounding the war. Friendships between players have been strained, and in some cases severed, according to a recent New York Times Magazine piece, with many Ukrainian players expressing frustration at the relative silence of many of their Russian peers.
There were 17 Russian or Belarusian women in the U.S. Open main singles draw, including a pair of former Grand Slam champions (Sabalenka and Victoria Azarenka). There were eight in the men’s singles draw, including 2021 U.S. Open champion Daniil Medvedev, who plays in the men’s semifinal on Friday.
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