‘I have never felt that much hate,’ says Sabalenka
Belarus’ world number two Aryna Sabalenka says she has faced “hate” in the women’s tour locker-room but hopes tensions with Ukrainian players will eventually ease. Australian Open champion Sabalenka lost to Kazakhstan’s Elena Rybakina in Sunday’s Indian Wells final and at the media day for this week’s ATP-WTA Miami Open was asked about her recent comments on “tensions” in the locker-room between Ukrainian and Russian and Belarus players.
“It was really, really tough for me because I’ve never faced that much hate in the locker room,” said Sabalenka. “Of course, there are a lot of haters on Instagram when you’re losing the matches, but like in the locker room, I’ve never faced that,” she added. “It was really tough for me to understand that there’s so many people who really hate me for no reason, like no reason. I mean, like I did nothing,” she said.
Sabalenka said sometimes the tension had gone beyond awkward silences and abrupt conversations. “I had some, not like fights, but I had some weird conversations with, not the girls, but with members of their team. It was really, it was tough. It was tough period. But, now it’s getting better,” she said.
In comments at Indian Wells Sabalenka had said she had been in a dispute with Ukrainian Lesia Tsurenko’s coach Nikita Vlasov. Tsurenko was due to play Sabalenka at Indian Wells but withdrew before their match. The Ukrainian said she had a “panic attack” and had also been upset with a conversation about the war and the position of Russian and Belarusian players with WTA CEO Steve Simon.
Sabalenka said she had found it hard to deal with the locker-room atmosphere initially. “I was really struggling with that because I really felt bad, like I did something and it’s still not so good in the locker room with some of the Ukrainian girls. But then I realized that it’s not my fault and I did nothing bad to them. And I’m pretty sure that the rest of the Russian and Belarusian athletes did nothing to Ukrainians,” she said.
“I just realized that this is all emotions and I just need to like ignore it and focus on myself with understanding that I did nothing bad. And I cannot control emotions of others,” she said. “It seems like, everyone’s just ignoring each other,” she said. “Not everyone actually, I’m still talking to some of the Ukrainians, but there are some of the girls who are like really aggressive against us. So I’m just staying away from that,” added Sabalenka.