​Wimbledon’s tournament director has said the watermelon symbol often used to represent the colours of the Palestinian flag does not meet the threshold for causing disruption, after a Turkish player placed a vibration dampener in the shape of the fruit on her racket. World number 51 Zeynep Sonmez used a watermelon shock absorber on Thursday after organisers allegedly banned her from wearing a pin in support of Palestine, it was reported. Sonmez told a Turkish state-run news agency on Thursday: “I used to wear a pin. Tournaments no longer allow me to wear it. We had a discussion with the organisers because the Ukrainian flag is allowed but the Palestinian is not. They ultimately told us they definitely would not allow it. So, I can’t wear the pin. I can use the vibration dampener, and they can’t object to that. That’s why I put the watermelon symbol on my racket.” The watermelon is regarded as a symbol for Palestinian solidarity, since its red, white, black and green colours match the flag.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, tournament director Jamie Baker said players have always been banned from political messaging on court, noting that this is the case for most grand slams. Mr Baker explained that the Ukrainian situation was unique, adding: “You know everything that happened here around our government guidance and the kind of international response, and we did respond to that and provided support to Ukrainian players for quite a while, so that was, I guess, an individual situation.” Wimbledon’s response to Russia’s invasion in 2022 included banning Russian and Belarusian players from the Championships.
Mr Baker added: “But in terms of the watermelon, we don’t think that’s meeting the threshold for causing any type of disruption.” In other Wimbledon news, former runner-up Matteo Berrettini delivered a standout performance with a 6-3, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 second-round win over 20th seed Arthur Fils to claim his first Centre Court triumph since 2021. Berrettini, who missed out on a maiden Grand Slam title five years ago to Novak Djokovic and has faced recent defeats on the main arena against Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, surged as a buoyant dark-horse candidate. Fresh from an entertaining four-set victory over Stan Wawrinka on Tuesday, he defeated Fils with a deft volley on match point.