Jelena Ostapenko set to continue receiving Latvian government funding after ministry withdraws suspension
Jelena Ostapenko received some much-needed positive news on Wednesday as it was confirmed that she will continue to receive the benefits from the Latvian government which had been withheld from her for the past few days.
The ministry recently decided not to pay some of their athletes, including Ostapenko and cyclists Tomas Skujinas and Kristas Neilands, citing that they competed in commercial competitions that endorsed the participation of players from Russia and Belarus.
However, with strong backlash from the public and athletes remaining stern on their decision not to back off from playing in their respective sports, the government was quick to withdraw the suspension.
The ministry, in a statement, announced that, after talks with the Latvian Tennis Union and Latvian Cycling Federation, they came up with the decision to restart state financial support for the concerned athletes.
"Evaluating the circumstances related to the withholding of financial benefits for athletes of the Latvian Olympic team Aļona Ostapenko, Tom Skujiņš and Kristas Neiland, as well as listening to the opinion of the Latvian Cycling Federation and the Latvian Tennis Union, the Ministry of Education and Science in cooperation with the Latvian Olympic Committee has prepared amendments to the agreement on the state financial support for the athletes of the Latvian Olympic team," a statement from the ministry read.
The ministry also assured that the new amendment will ensure that the "full" amount of the allocated funding goes to the athletes.
"The amendments from today foresee preventing the withholding of benefits for the mentioned athletes and will ensure the full amount of funding"
Jelena Ostapenko remained resilient on continuing playing tennis despite funding concerns
Touching on the subject recently, Jelena Ostapenko had remained steadfast in her opinion that she was determined to play tennis even at the cost of being denied government funding.
Speaking to the Women's Tennis Blog, Ostapenko stated that she could only feature in thethat ifTA and if she had to abide by the initial orders of the government, she would have to quit tennis -- something the World No. 25 was reluctant to do no matter what.
"The WTA organizes these tournaments and I don't have the opportunity to play elsewhere. Basically, it means that I cannot play in any tournament. I have to quit tennis. I will not do that because I am a tennis player and this is my sport. Unfortunately, that is the reality," Ostapenko said.
Jelena Ostapenko most recently featured at the 2023 BNP Paribas Open, where she endured a third-round exit upon losing against Petra Kvitova.