Ukrainian players do not get enough support from women’s tennis governing body WTA amid Russia’s invasion of their country, Elina Svitolina said on Tuesday.
Svitolina, back on the tour at the Charleston Open after a maternity break, spoke to support fellow Ukrainian player Lesia Tsurenko, who said she withdrew from the Indian Wells tournament because of a panic attack brought on by a conversation the 33-year-old had days earlier with WTA chief executive Steve Simon about tennis’s response to the Russian invasion.
“We are afraid, we feel empty. What is happening to Lesia is very sad. People who haven’t experienced it can’t really understand what it feels like to have no home, to feel safe nowhere, to have family in Ukraine, under the bombs, to know that Ukrainian cities are being destroyed. It’s both fear and a great emptiness,” Svitolina, who was the world No.1 one when she took a break from the tour to give birth, told French sports daily l’Equipe.
“The WTA should have done more, much more, on many issues. Now it’s too late. There have been a lot of press releases, a lot of interviews. It was useless,” she said.
The WTA, along with men’s body ATP, welcomed Wimbledon organisers’ decision to lift a ban on Russian and Belarusian players last Friday, allowing them to compete in the grasscourt grand slam this year as “neutral” athletes.
Last week, Ukrainian tennis player Marta Kostyuk said International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach was wrong to argue that Russian and Belarus athletes can return to international competitions because they already compete without friction in some sports.
Asked what her reaction would be if they would be allowed to take part in next year’s Olympics in Paris, Svitolina said: “I don’t think about it. It’s up to the Olympic Committee and the Ukrainian Committee to think about it and do their job! My job, as a player, is to get ready.”
Not an easy return
Svitolina did not exactly ease her way back in her first match as a mother: Her return after more than a year away from the tennis tour was a back-and-forth three-setter lasting 2 hours, 46 minutes at the Charleston Open on Monday.
Svitolina could not quite pull out a victory, ceding the last two games and losing 6-7 (3), 6-2, 6-4 to Yulia Putintseva on the main stadium’s green clay on a cloudy, breezy day.
“Physically, it was not easy for me,” said Svitolina, a 28-year-old from Ukraine. “It showed, I think, that I’m not at my best, but I’m getting there.”
Svitolina and her husband, fellow player Gael Monfils, became parents in October, when their daughter, Skaï, was born.
She felt goosebumps when the crowd roared to mark her entrance.
Reuters, AP/PTI
