Tunisia’s tennis team was barred from competing in the prestigious international Davis Cup tournament for a year because the northern African nation prevented one of its players from competing against an Israeli last month.
The International Tennis Federation declared that the Tunisian Tennis Federation breached the ITF constitution when it ordered its top player, Malek Jaziri, to withdraw from a match in Uzbekistan against Israel’s Amir Weintraub, the Times of Israel reported.
“There is no room for prejudice of any kind in sport or society,” said ITF President Francesco Ricci Bitti.
Tunisia was the exiled home of PLO leader Yasir Arafat from the eary 1980s, when he was driven out of Lebanon, until he entered peace talks with Israel in 1993.
