Unable to sleep the night before her first-round match at the French Open against second seed Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus, Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine checked her phone at 5am on Sunday and saw disturbing news back home in Kyiv.
At least one person was killed when the capital of Kostyuk’s nation was subjected to the largest drone attack by Russia since the start of the war, launched with an invasion assisted by Belarus in February last year.
“It’s something I cannot describe, probably. I try to put my emotions aside any time I go out on court. I think I’m better than before, and I don’t think it affects me as much on a daily basis, but yeah, it’s just — I don’t know,” Kostyuk said, shaking her head. “There is not much to say, really. It’s just part of my life.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
That, then, is why Kostyuk decided she would not exchange the usual post-match pleasantries with opponents from Russia or Belarus, and that is why she avoided a handshake — avoided any eye contact, even — after losing to Australian Open champion Sabalenka 6-3, 6-2 at Roland Garros.
What surprised the 20-year-old, 39th-ranked Kostyuk was the reaction she received from the spectators on Court Philippe Chatrier: They loudly booed and derisively whistled at her as she walked directly over to acknowledge the chair umpire instead of congratulating the winner after the lopsided result.
The negative response grew louder as she gathered her belongings and walked off the court toward the locker room.
“I have to say, I didn’t expect it... People should be, honestly, embarrassed,” Kostyuk said.
Kostyuk is based in Monaco, and her mother and sister are there, too, but her father and grandfather are still in Kyiv. Perhaps the fans on hand at the clay-court event’s main stadium were unaware of the backstory and figured Kostyuk simply failed to follow usual tennis etiquette.
Initially, Sabalenka — who had approached the net as if anticipating some sort of exchange with Kostyuk — thought the noise was directed at her.
“At first, I thought they were booing me,” Sabalenka said. “I was a little confused and I was, like: ‘OK, what should I do?’”
Sabalenka tried to ask the chair umpire what was going on. She looked up at her entourage in the stands, too. Then she realized that while she is aware Kostyuk and other Ukrainian players have been declining to greet opponents from Russia or Belarus after a match, the spectators might not have known — and so responded in a way Sabalenka did not think was deserved.
“They saw it as disrespect [for] me,” she said.
Sabalenka called Sunday “emotionally tough” — because of mundane, tennis-related reasons, such as the nerves that come with any first-round match, but more significantly because of the unusual circumstances involving the war.
“You’re playing against [a] Ukrainian and you never know what’s going to happen. You never know how people will — will they support you or not?” said Sabalenka, who went down an early break and trailed 3-2 before reeling off six consecutive games with powerful first-strike hitting. “I was worried, like, people will be against me and I don’t like to play when people [are] so much against me.”
A journalist from Ukraine asked Sabalenka what her message to the world is with regard to the war, particularly in this context — she can overtake Iga Swiatek at No. 1 in the rankings based on results over the next two weeks and, therefore, serves as a role model.
“Nobody in this world, Russian athletes or Belarusian athletes, support the war. Nobody. How can we support the war? Nobody — normal people — will never support it. Why [do] we have to go loud and say that things? This is like: ‘One plus one [is] two.’ Of course we don’t support war,” Sabalenka said. “If it could affect anyhow the war, if it could like stop it, we would do it, but unfortunately it’s not in our hands.”
When some of those comments was read to Kostyuk by a reporter, she responded in calm, measured tones that she does not get why Sabalenka does not come out and say that “she personally doesn’t support this war.”
Kostyuk also rejected the notion that players from Russia or Belarus could be in a tough spot upon returning to those nations if they were to speak out about what is happening in Ukraine.
“I don’t know why it’s a difficult situation,” Kostyuk said. “I don’t know what other players are afraid of. I go back to Ukraine, where I can die any second from drones or missiles or whatever it is.”
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