Ukrainian athletes are very involved in Russia’s war against their country. As a protest, Ukrainian tennis players refuse to shake hands with their Russian counterparts after matches. They also sometimes find themselves personally affected, like Dayana Yastremska.
The semi-finalist of the 2024 Australian Open, now 113th in the world rankings, shared on Saturday, on her Instagram account, videos of her apartment totally devastated by Russian strikes on the city of Odessa, in southern Ukraine.
“This is what the “Russian world” looks like: a Kalibr cruise missile directly hit our building. A Russian missile destroyed our apartment in Odessa, the 26-year-old wrote to accompany the images of her completely destroyed home. The only thing that survived was a towel from Roland Garros. Symbolic. A piece of world tennis survived a Russian missile. Our home did not survive.”
Yastremska calls out WTA and ITF
In her message, Dayana Yastremska also questioned the WTA and the International Tennis Federation (ITF) about Russian players. “WTA, ITF, look at these images through our eyes. This is what your “neutrality” really means – seen from the Ukrainian side of the court,” she wrote.
She is not the only Ukrainian player to experience the horror of war up close. Last May, during the Roland-Garros tournament, star Marta Kostyuk declared that, on the morning of her first round, a missile had destroyed a building located barely 100 m from her parents’ house in kyiv.
