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PARIS (AP) - Russian tennis players Mirra Andreeva and Diana Shnaider gave the group competing as Individual Neutral Athletes, known by the French acronym AIN, a chance at its first gold medal at the Paris Olympics by winning Friday to reach the women’s doubles final.
Russian tennis players Mirra Andreeva and Diana Shnaider give AIN a shot at gold in women’s doubles
PARIS (AP) - Russian tennis players Mirra Andreeva and Diana Shnaider gave the group competing as Individual Neutral Athletes, known by the French acronym AIN, a chance at its first gold medal at the Paris Olympics by winning Friday to reach the women’s doubles final.
Andreeva, who is 17, and Shnaider, a 20-year-old who played college tennis at North Carolina State after moving to the United States, beat the eighth-seeded team of Cristina Bucsa and Sara Sorribes Tormo of Spain 6-1, 6-2 in the semifinals.
Russia and Belarus were banned by the International Olympic Committee from team sports at the Paris Games because of the war in Ukraine that began in February 2022. Individual athletes with Russian or Belarusian passports were allowed to compete as neutrals if they qualified and then were approved for entry to the Olympics.
Andreeva and Shnaider - who are wearing all-white uniforms, with none of the flags or other markings used by other tennis players at the Olympics - can do no worse than a silver medal. They will face Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini of Italy in the final.
