Former tennis legend Ilie Nastase has reacted to the ITF decision released last Friday to suspend him until 2021 and to fine him USD 10,000 for his behaviour during the Fed Cup match in Constanta between Romania and Britain.
Ilie Nastase has issued a press communiqué, showing surprise with the ITF decision and claiming to take action to independent forums.
“I have received the decision in my case from the International Tennis Federation with disappointment and surprise,” he wrote, according to adevarul.ro.
Nastase claims that the panel has approached his case lacking impartiality, “just as the entire team of Romania was treated during the Fed Cup in Constanta. Unfortunately for me, the decision goes far beyond the standards applied in all previous precedents where the International Federation has applied much smaller sanctions for far more serious violations (cases of doping, in which players have threatened or even have assaulted the referees).”
He also added that the Fed Cup match between Romania and Britain has as ITF supervisor a British national and “now the investigation initiated against me in the complaint of the British Federation was resolved in London by a full representative of British nationality.”
Ilie Nastase says that “during the match between Sorana Cîrstea and Johanna Konta it did not matter that the British tennis player committed more than 40 violations of the regulation, mattered only the reactions I had because I lost my temper after the referees ignored my complaints about these issues. The investigation was only against me, only my reactions have been analyzed, taken out of the context in which they occurred, without even taking into account the issues that have provoked and amplified the way in which I reacted, it ignored and misunderstood my intention in regard to certain statements, as well as my repeated attempts to correct the consequences. That is why I feel obliged to look forward to justice in front of independent and impartial forums, which will ensure a fair and equitable treatment,” Năstase wrote in his release.