Tensions rise in locker room as tennis lets Russians play on
Ukraine players in tears as fears grow over Wimbledon
FORMER world No3 Elina Svitolina, Ukraine’s best tennis player, has lost to British opponents in two successive tournaments.
At Indian Wells it was against Harriet Dart and here on Thursday she went down to Heather Watson. As determinedly as her opponents played, it is hardly surprising that the 2019 Wimbledon semi-finalist had a distracted look about her.
Tennis is carrying on pretty much as usual during the horrors afflicting her country, but for Svitolina — who is married to French star Gael Monfils — there can be no normal.
Originally from the Black Sea city of Odesa, she constantly fears what fate awaits it. Her parents are among the 3.5 million refugees who have escaped to western Europe, but she still has an aunt, uncle and grandmother stranded there.
Meanwhile her fellow Ukrainian player Sergiy Stakhovsky, who played at January’s Australian Open before announcing his retirement, has taken up arms, as has his Davis Cup team-mate Alex Dolgopolov.
Small wonder there exists, according to tour insiders, high levels of tension in the women’s locker room, where Ukrainians have to mix with Russians, who are presently deemed stateless for tennis purposes.
Neither is it a surprise that the French Open and Wimbledon organisers, who operate independently of the main tours, are said to be nervous about the sport’s united front in letting Russians and Belarussians play on without flags.
Tennis is increasingly an outlier in this, with swimming last week the latest world body to strip them of their right to compete.
Here in America the war seems far away, but if the invasion drags on the atmosphere promises to be more febrile around the issue of Russian players when the main tours arrive back in their European epicentre next month.
UK Sports Minister Nigel Huddleston has said the Government will seek measures to ensure there can be no propaganda victories for Russia at SW19 this summer. According to All England Club sources, they have been told this is not just talk and that the prospect of competitors having to publicly disassociate themselves from Vladimir
Putin is real.
While the ATP and WTA Tours are player-member organisations — which, as seen again last week, is why they so often take a lenient line on any disciplinary matters — the Grand Slams are not. Within Roland Garros and Wimbledon there are significant voices raising concerns about the situation as it stands; the optics of allowing everyone to play on regardless. Svitolina is clearly troubled, but she has not gone as far in public pronouncements as fellow player Marta Kostyuk.
She has complained about the attitude of Russians towards her in the locker room, their lack of sensitivity, and called for them to be banned.
Kostyuk did not wish to speak this week following her heavy defeat by Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic and was reported by WTA officials to be in floods of tears in the locker room after the match.
Svitolina was more restrained in an interview with the WTA Tour website. ‘Before, Odesa was safer than Kyiv or eastern Ukraine,’ she said. ‘I spoke to my grandmother, who lives by the sea. She said they were launching rockets from ships, right into the city.
‘They are very scared. I’ve been really worried for their safety. I would say I’m not 100 per cent.
‘Talking to the other Ukrainian players in Indian Wells and Miami, they have been struggling, too. We are telling each other, yeah, we are here and then sometimes we are not here.
‘Every hour we are seeing the news everywhere. You see it and it’s very painful.’
Even if she did want Russians suspended, she would not have the support of WTA supremo Steve Simon, who is strongly against the idea of punishing members for the deeds of their state.
Most people working in tennis acknowledge that how to deal with the situation is a complex question, with no easy way out of the moral maze.
And it should not be forgotten that those from Russia are in no easy position themselves. One agent was recently asked by his Russian player to write some words down in English, which he could refer to in an interview when the subject was likely to arise.
When the suggested text came back with the word ‘war’ in it, the player pointed out that just using the term ‘war’ could bring with it a 15-year jail term back home. Not easy indeed.