Dominic Thiem’s stance on contributing to the Players’ Fund to help has led to a bit of a mild outrage and now Ines Ibbou has joined in the fray with a response of her own.
Ibbou, whose career-best ranking of 604th in the world came last year, is an Algerian who has taken strong exception to Thiem’s statement about contributing towards the players’ fund.
Thiem had said he is against donating towards a fund geared towards helping lower-ranked players who have been majorly affected by the cancellation of all tennis because of the coronavirus pandemic.
[the_ad id=”14063″]
He reasoned out there were players who did not give it their everything on the tour and it made no sense for him to support a fund which helped such players.
The 21-year-old Ibbou, said in her post she found Thiem’s “last words were hurtful to say the least” and as a result decided to write him a letter which would help change his mind about players ranked lower in the ranking.
She added she hoped the video would help change his feelings.
In that video, Ibbou rationalised with Thiem by underlining how a lower-ranked player goes through all they go through, struggling to make ends meet and sacrificing so much but only to struggle without any kind of sponsored help or other financial support.
Also Read:
- How Does Tennis Suspension Affect Federer, Nadal, Djokovic?
- French Open Tickets Cancelled, What about the Tournament?
She begins in her video with:
“After reading your last post, I was wondering what would have been my career and therefore my life, if I was in your shoes.”
In the rest of what turns out to be a touching video, Ibbou goes on to underline the differences between the advantages a player with a privileged background has over someone who hasn’t had too many opportunities to play on proper courts growing up, lack of sponsors because there are hardly any big-brand names in the country or even one’s parents who were tennis coaches.
Ibbou ends the video with how there were many more players who were sailing in the same boat as Ibbou unlike Thiem, but they had all survived because of their fighting spirit and not because of “your [Thiem’s] money”.
Ibbou said:
“Just a reminder, it’s not because of your money, we survived until now. And nobody requested to you anything. The initiative went from generous players who showed instant compassion with a classy touch.”
“Players eager to spread solidarity and find solutions to make a difference. Champions at all costs. This unexpected crisis is putting us through a challenging time and revealing who people truly are. Helping players is helping tennis to survive. The game is noble.”
“The meaning of sport is to distinguish the most talented, the most persistent, the hard worker, the bravest. Or may be you want to play alone on court.”
“Dominic, told you, we do not ask anything from you except a bit of respect to our sacrifice. Players like you make me hold on to my dreams. Please. Don’t ruin it.”
It remains to be seen if Thiem responds to this but the post has already resonated among some of the players with Venus Williams and Nick Kyrgios having commented to it.
Venus commented on the post, “You’re my hero,” with Ibbou responding, “You always been mine too, and now you’re even more to me. Thank you so much.”
Kyrgios, who had earlier been critical of Thiem’s stance, said: “Respect. Keep doing you!! I’m always willing to support.”
Be the first to comment