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Moscow: Russian Tennis Federation (RTF) president Shamil Tarpischev is weighing up an appeal against his year-long WTA Tour suspension for making an inappropriate comment about the Williams sisters.
“I am looking at the possibility of filing a lawsuit,” Tarpischev told the ITAR-TASS news agency on Wednesday.
“If I am going to make such a move then it will be in the U.S. court, where I will be able to find out on what basis the sanctions were applied.”
Tarpischev appeared on a Russian late-night chat show alongside former WTA player Elena Dementieva in October.
When Dementieva was asked what it was like to play against the American sisters, Tarpischev interrupted and referred to them as the “Williams brothers”.
The WTA fined him $25,000 and demanded a personal apology as well as disqualifying him for from working in an organisational capacity for one year.
Tarpischev has officially apologised for his comment but does not agree with the punishment. However, the Russian Davis Cup captain faces a dilemma as he does not know who to file the suit against.
The official said he analyzed the comments along with linguistics experts and they said they were neither insulting nor abusive.
“I translated the findings into English and sent them to the WTA but they did not accept them,” he added.
“The International Tennis Federation and International Olympic Committee (IOC) also said they would not look into the issue. Therefore, I believe the whole situation was a set-up.”
Reuters
