Russian and Belarusian tennis players will be banned from competing at this year’s Wimbledon.

Wimbledon announced the ban on Wednesday in light of the ongoing Russian invasion in Ukraine, of which Belarus has supported.

The ban would see world number two Daniil Medvedev, number eight Andrey Rublev from Russia and Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka miss out.

On the women’s side, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (ranked world number 15), Daria Kasatkina (number 26) and Veronika Kudermetova (number 29) would be among those affected by the ruling.

Belarusian players, Sabalenka (number four) and Victoria Azarenka (number 18), would also be affected.

“In the circumstances of such unjustified and unprecedented military aggression, it would be unacceptable for the Russian regime to derive any benefits from the involvement of Russian or Belarusian players,” a statement from the AELTC read.

“It is therefore our intention, with deep regret, to decline entries from Russian and Belarusian players to Wimbledon.”

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov criticised the ban.

“Given that Russia is a strong tennis country and our athletes possess top lines of the world rating, the tournament itself would suffer because of this ban,” he said.

“It is unacceptable to make the athletes once again hostages of certain political prejudice, intrigues and hostile actions towards our country.”