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Tennis News –
Marta Kostyuk told BTU how the tennis world responded to the Ukrainian players' latest statement and her own views whether sport and politics should not be mixed as some players suggestedMarta Kostyuk: "Paula Badosa is not the only one who feels this way. They just do not understand how serious this whole situation is" On the reaction to the Ukrainian tennis players’ joint statement to the governing bodies - There was no feedback as such from the governing bodies. It is very difficult to give comments on this situation, to be honest. They didn't communicate with us at all. We’ve got only tons of hate online afterward. We’ve got some support too, of course, from the Ukrainians. But there was nothing more than that. Also there was feedback from some players, we’ve talked in private. Some players told me, like, when Russian and Belarusian players would be excluded from all tournaments and stuff like that. Like they had no right to play because everyone suffers, it's very hard for everyone and they kind of play as usual. They came up to me and said things like that. It is very difficult to give an answer, because, as it turned out, it is quite difficult to influence the WTA. We are trying our best, but, to be honest, I don’t know if we are successful in this or how it can be measured. But I think, as I said, the more players speak out in support of Ukraine, the more and more influence will become. Then some collective opinion will crystallize. But for some reason everyone is very scared, and I don’t understand why. It is clear the Ukrainian people have become fearless. Everyone has its own experience, and it's definitely hard. But fear, as such, about various life issues, it’s gone now, because there are worse things, as everyone has already got it. I don’t know what the players are afraid of, I don’t understand. On relationships within the tennis world - Imagine if the CEOs of different companies, like, Dolce & Gabbana, Louis Vuitton, Prada compete in the same place every week. Under such conditions, people will gather in small groups on rare occasions. There are small groups of friends, but there are no such thing like there are 20 people are we all are super excited to meet each other every time. So, yes, we have a very individual sport. Why did I compare it with a CEO metaphor, because each player has its own company: we have our own teams, we have our own structure, we have our own work strategy. We do not depend on each other, so it influences the discussions and decision-making. Alas, the world is so cruel. On the views shared by Paula Badosa, the world No.2 - In early March, when we arrived in Indian Wells, it was the first time Paula and I met. She approached me and asked me, how I was, if everything was fine with my family. And that was it. In Indian Wells or in Dubai, I asked her if she would like to play doubles with me because I thought we could do well. She said, let's try to play in Madrid, let's try somewhere else, but actually I don’t play doubles at all. Then I saw that she was playing doubles with Aryna Sabalenka in Miami and Stuttgart. It really surprised me. I realized I would no longer ask her about playing doubles together. Paula Badosa's position [expressed in a recent interview] was strange to me, but she is not the only one who feels this way. Many players are not in this triangle that we are in. They are very scared to think that there is some kind of criminal liability in Russia for “spreading the fake news about the war,” as it is called there. It frightens them and they refer to this, they say, there are such laws, they also have families, and so on. But they do not understand the seriousness of the whole thing, because they are not even in the same situation as Poles or Czechs who welcomed millions of people who fled the war. So they don’t have this experience of dealing with our reality to the same extent as others, therefore they cannot see the situation is that bad, roughly speaking. That’s why they have such an opinion. It surprised me and such surprises keep coming, I don’t understand, why. But this is not for the first time I've been surprised in the past two months. That’s our cruel tennis world as it is. Website BTU - Ukrainian Tennis - joins the fundraising to help internally displaced persons in Dnipropetrovsk Region
You can support those, who have been forced to flee their homes due to the Russian military aggression, with a donation via PayPal? Источник: btu.org.ua |
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