Woman says she was asked to leave Western & Southern Open for wearing Ukraine flag
MASON, Ohio (WKRC) - A controversy off-court at the Western & Southern Open tournament Sunday may now end up in court.
An umpire reportedly asked a fan to remove the Ukrainian flag draped over her shoulders.
The woman says she was told it was bothering two Russian tennis players on the court.
The issue quickly took social media by storm, with hundreds of people tweeting about it.
Lola, who is a huge tennis fan, is overcome by emotion after the incident.
“This is not Russia," she said, tearfully. "This is United States of America."
Lola is an American, originally from Uzbekistan. She says she was asked to leave the Western & Southern Open. A photo shows Lola as she stands in the bleachers during a match between Anastasia Potapova and Anna Kalinskaya -- both Russian players.
“We had our Ukrainian flag, not doing anything crazy, distracting players, but wrapped around, sitting there peacefully and quiet," she said.
Then, she says, the chair umpire stopped the match, spoke to the players, and called to her in the stands. Video of some of the encounter was posted to Twitter.
Local 12 asked Lola what exactly the umpire said to her.
“'You’re not being nice. You need to put the flag away,'” she said. “The message I got was that it is agitating Russian players. I said, 'I’m not putting it away.' They kept playing for a minute or two. Then, they stopped the game again, and then the security guard came up to me and said, ‘Ma’am, I’m going to call the cops if you won’t leave.”
Lola says she left the stands and 15 minutes later, the same security guard asked her to remove the flag or leave the tournament, because it 'exceeded size rules.'
The Western & Southern Open sent a statement, saying, in part, "Flags or banners larger than 18 x 18 are prohibited."
When asked about what happened the spokesperson replied, "Questions regarding a chair umpire need to be addressed to the WTA Tour."
The WTA Tour did not respond when asked to comment.
Local 12 asked the president of the nonprofit Cincy4Ukraine, Eugenia Nemirovska de Santos, about the incident.
“Russian players come in and dictate here what US citizens can or cannot do?” de Santos said. “That kind of does not bode well with the Ukrainian community.”
She says people should now expect to see a lot of small Ukrainian flags, and a lot of blue and yellow, at the tournament.
“Fine. You don’t like our flag? What if it’s our clothing? You’re going to ask us to take our clothes too off?” she said.
Cincy4Ukraine says it has contacted a civil rights attorney to see if Lola's first amendment rights were violated. The video has now been seen more than 40,000 times on Twitter, with hundreds of comments overwhelmingly supporting Lola, and condemning the apparent actions of the WTA official.
