 Welcome back to Tennis Talk, my name's Count Williams and Russia and Belarusian players have been banned by the ITF in competing in some events as well as some events being pulled out of those countries due to the conflict that's happening in Ukraine at the moment with Russia invading Ukraine of course. Let's go over the statement that the ITF came out with. So this is what the ITF came out with a statement on their website saying the international governing bodies of tennis stand united in our condemnation of Russia's actions and as a result are in agreement with the following decisions and actions. The WTA and ATP boards have made the decision to suspend the WTA-ATP combined event scheduled this October in Moscow. The ITF board has made the decision to spend the Russian Tennis Federation and Belarusian Tennis Federation membership and to withdraw their entries from the all ITF team competitions. Until further notice, this action follows the cancellation of all ITF tournaments in Russia and Belarus indefinitely. At this time, players from Russia and Belarus will continue to be allowed to compete in international tennis events on tour and at the Grand Slams. However, they will not compete under the name or flag of Russia or Belarus until further notice. So along with that statement, this is the more information they actually bought out. So some of the questions that you might all have, the big one being what events can the Russian and Belarusian players play in? So they can play in individual events including the four Grand Slams of course, but it's the Davis Cup that they will not be able to play in and same with the Billie Jean King Cup. So those team events they will not be able to play in, which for Russia is a big deal because Russia are the defending champions of both the Davis Cup and the Billie Jean King Cup. So they're being pulled out of those two competitions and Belarus have been pulled out of a couple of qualifier events that are happening over the next couple of months. And how long is this suspension going to be in place? So the suspension is going to be for an indefinite period because we don't know when this invasion is going to end. We don't know how far it's actually going to go. So Belarus and Russia are going to be penalized in team events for at least the rest of this year, maybe into next year depending on how long this lasts. So there you have it. They are the conditions, I guess you could say that the Belarus and Russian players are going to have to play on it. Now we have some of the best players in the world from both those countries. We've got Grand Slam champions from both those countries, our top 10 players, of course, Medvedev, number one player in the world right now for the men, Sabalenko is number three in the world for the women right now. You've got Azarenka, Rublev, Hashinov, Karatsev, it's going to be very interesting to see how they play. And of course, they're not going to be able to represent their countries. They're not going to have their names associated with the flags. So no national anthems, any of that stuff. None of that's going to be over the next couple of months off of the foreseeable future, as they mentioned there. And look, it's very rare that the ATP, WTA and the ITF all see eye to eye. Usually they're all in competition with each other. We all know that the ITF, who control the slams and also the Davis Cup and the Fed Cup don't usually mess around with the ATP and don't talk to the ATP and WTA. It's good to see that the tennis world is united around this big issue that's happening. And look, let me know down in the comments below. Do you think this is enough? Do you think the players should be banned? They did say there that at this time the players will still be able to play. Is that going to change in the next couple of months if this escalates even further? Are the Russian and Belarusian players going to be penalized more? Or are they going to be penalized and not being able to play, not just Davis Cup and Fed Cup, but also grand slams and maybe some of the ATP tour? I don't know. Let me know down in the comments below. What do you think? Should there be more action made?