Tennismatches usually end with match point. The first encounter, which was played at the French Open on Sunday on the Philippe Chatrier court, only really picked up speed after the last rally – albeit in the wrong direction. After the defeated Marta Kostjuk energetically went to the net, shook hands with the referee and her opponent Aryna Sabalenka did not, many spectators in the largest tennis stadium in Paris began to boo and whistle.
The fact that Kostjuk is from Ukraine, that her hometown of Kiev was exposed to the worst Russian drone attack since the attack in February 2022 the night before, apparently did not bother the viewers. They wanted everything to be the same as always: one athlete shakes hands with the other after the game, no matter the circumstances. “I wasn’t prepared for that,” Kostyuk said. She felt that “the people” should be ashamed. “Ten years after the end of the war, they won’t feel good about what they did.”
“No one can understand”
The fact that the Belarusian Sabalenka also bowed gratefully like a matador at the end made the whole matter even worse. She was confused because she thought the audience had whistled at her, the second in the world rankings later explained. When asked, the Belarusian, who has to compete as a neutral athlete on the professional tour, said of the expressions of displeasure towards her opponent: “She didn’t deserve to leave the field in this way.”
Marta Kostjuk has been one of the strongest voices in the tennis circus for months when it comes to the war of aggression by the Russians and their Belarusian comrades-in-arms on their homeland. For a 20-year-old, she condemns the Russian war of aggression and the way it is dealt with in the sports world with astonishing reflection. She set up a foundation for those who stayed at home and for this reason returned to her home country for a short time at the end of March instead of spending time in her sporting exile in Monaco.
The inclined Parisian tennis audience knew nothing about it or didn’t want to know anything about it. From a distance, the devastating war against an entire people seemed less important to them than a sporting gesture at the end of a competition. The matches must go on – the French Open had its first scandal in the first game of the first day.
The officials would also like to see sport and war somehow separated: starting with the International Olympic Committee, which would like to see professional tennis as a shining example of how Ukrainians and Russians can work together; then the lords of the Association of Professional Women Tennis Players WTA, who want to help the women from Ukraine without taking any action; and finally the moderators at the French Open, who at press conferences push harmless questions about the finished game, although everyone is much more interested in how the Russian and Belarusian tennis professionals feel about the war and how the players from Ukraine are coping with the situation. “No one can understand what we have been going through for months,” said Marta Kostjuk, not for the first time.
Unlike the Paris audience, Aryna Sabalenka has been used to not being shaken by Ukrainians like Kostjuk for months. She doesn’t take it personally, but has an inkling of what else “will happen to them from the Ukrainian side.” What else could be gotten out of the Belarusian: a rejection of the war that was a tad clearer than in the past 15 months: “No one in the world supports the war, not even Russian and Belarusian athletes. If we could stop him, we would.”
When Kostjuk hears such statements from her not-so-lovely competitors, she has to catch her breath. She knows tennis players who support the war very well, said the 39th in the world rankings. Perhaps, she advises, it would be better to ask Sabalenka and the other representatives of the warring parties who they think should win the war. “I don’t think these people will then say they want Ukraine to win.” She cannot respect Sabalenka as long as she, as one of the world’s best players, does not take a concrete stand on the platforms available to her.
Incidentally, Aryna Sabalenka won the first round match against Marta Kostjuk after 1:11 hours 6:3 and 6:2. In the second round she now expects a kind of friendly game – she meets her compatriot Irina Schymanowitsch.
