Indian Wells – Ukrainian Kostyuk castigates the silence of Russian players on the Ukraine-Russia War

Marta Kostyuk is angry about the situation in her country. The Ukrainian, qualified for the second round of the tournament on Thursday, pointed to the attitude of the Russian players, publicly silent according to her concerning the war in Ukraine.

“It’s very disappointing that no Russian player has come to me to tell me that they are sorry to see what their country is inflicting on mine. There are more Ukrainian civilians who died than soldiers, and among them children… it’s terrible“, the 19-year-old lamented.”A player texted me. Another came to chat with me, but no one gave me support or asked how I was doing. It’s shocking“, she insisted.

“It’s not about politics, it’s about people. It hurts me, it hurts me when I get here on the site, when I see these players, when I hear them say that their main problem is not being able to transfer their money or things like that, this is unacceptable“, she added. “I don’t know why the Russians act like this. What is happening is no secret, we know what is happening, who is attacking the other, who is bombarding the other. It’s easy to understand and you can’t remain neutral“, estimated Kostyuk.

Since the start of the conflict in Ukraine, the positions taken by Russian players have been rare: world No. 1 Daniil Medvedev has called for peace while Andrey Rublev or Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, finalist of Roland-Garros 2021, have said their opposition to war. In Pavlyuchenkova’s case, her Instagram post has since been deleted.

Disagree with the decision of the WTA and ATP circuits

“But saying ‘no’ to war means a lot of things. ‘No to war’ can mean, for example, to stop fighting. But that’s not an option for us. So their press releases are meaningless to me. What do they want? That Ukraine loses, that Russia wins? I don’t know anything about it…“, she breathed. “Ukraine will never give up, but we know that Putin won’t stop either, he’s crazy. So we fight“, continued the 54th player in the world.

Kostyuk further spoke about the difficulty of practicing his sport given the current situation. “It was very hard to come on the court. When I woke up this morning, I didn’t think I was going to play. My family is there. You go to bed at night and you don’t know if the next day… It’s not an easy time, the first days were horrible to live, but the nervous system manages to adapt, it gets used to the situation“, explained the one who will be opposed to the Belgian Elise Mertens in the next round.

If it is programmed on the switchboard, it will see the Ukrainian flag flying next to the American on the roof. Whose yellow and blue colors were sported Thursday by Daria Savile (née Gavrilova), an Australian, Russian of origin.