The Turkish No. 1, Zeynep Sönmez, has played with a watermelon-shaped vibration dampener on her strings for more than a year. Tournaments keep banning the Palestine pin she used to wear, but the dampener is standard racket gear, so it stays on.
Sönmez has used the dampener across multiple tournaments, including other Grand Slams. The fruit has stood in for the banned Palestinian flag since the 1967 Six-Day War, its red, green, black and white slices echoing the flag’s colors.
She used to wear a small Palestine pin as well, until tournaments began ruling it a political statement and barring her from playing with it. At Wimbledon this year, organizers told her flatly the pin was out — even as Ukrainian symbols were allowed.
“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,” she told Anadolu Agency.
Her singles run at Wimbledon is over, but she remains in the doubles draw — with the same racket.
Thank you for reading. You can find Thought Catalog on Facebook, and read more over on our website.
