'Very unfair': Nadal criticises Wimbledon ban on Russian and Belarusian players

Rafael Nadal has criticised the decision to ban Russian and Belarusian players from Wimbledon as a response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

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Days after Wimbledon decided to ban Russian and Belarusian players from this year's tournament, Spanish ace Rafael Nadal on Sunday criticised the call and termed it 'very unfair'.

Players from Russia and Belarus have also been barred from any of the UK grass-court tournaments by the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) in response to Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

"I think it's very unfair [on] my Russian tennis mates, my colleagues. It's not their fault what's happening at this moment with the war," Nadal said ahead of his return to action at the Madrid Open.

World number one Novak Djokovic had earlier called the ban "crazy", while Russian world number eight Andrey Rublev said the ban was "complete discrimination" and "illogical". 

The governing bodies of men's (ATP) and women's professional tennis (WTA) are against the ban and are deciding how to react. One possibility is that they could remove ranking points from the Grand Slam tournament, which runs from 27 June to 10 July.

The 21-time Grand Slam winner, a member of the ATP Player Council, said, "The 2,000 points, whenever we go to the grand slams, are really important, and we have to go to those tournaments. So we will have to see the measures that we take."

"At the end of the day, what happens in our game, it doesn't have any importance when we can see so many people dying and suffering and seeing the bad situation they are having in Ukraine," the 35-year-old stated.

The Spanish ace is playing his first tournament in six weeks after suffering a stress fracture of a rib at Indian Wells in March. Nadal's loss to Taylor Fritz in the final ended his 20-match winning streak to start the season.

"Talking about the injury, I'm recovered, I feel good. Talking about my tennis game and preparations, well, it's a completely different story. Anyone who has broken a rib knows how limiting it is, very painful, especially the first weeks. I wasn't able to do anything without a lot of difficulties, even to fall asleep because of the pain," Nadal added.

"I have improved compared to when I came here but I still have up and downs because it's been a long time without being in these kind of situations and it's going to be a difficult week, for sure," the Spaniard concluded.