PARIS: Ukrainian players are not receiving enough support from the women’s tennis association WTA in the face of the Russian invasion of their country, Elina Svitolina said on Tuesday.
Svitolina, who was back on tour at the Charleston Open after a maternity leave, spoke to fellow Ukrainian Lesia Tsurenko, who said she pulled out of the tournament after a panic attack that was sparked by a conversation she had with the 33-year-old Indian Wells retreated days earlier with WTA boss Steve Simon about tennis’s response to the Russian invasion.
“We are afraid, we feel empty. What is happening to Lesia is very sad. People who haven’t experienced it can’t really understand how it feels to have no home, nowhere to feel safe, to have family in Ukraine, to know under the bombs that Ukrainian cities are being destroyed. It’s both fear and a great emptiness,” Svitolina, who was world number one when she took a break from the tour to give birth, told French sports newspaper l’Equipe.
“The WTA should have done more, much more on many issues. It’s too late now. There were many press releases, many interviews. It was useless,” she said.
The WTA, along with the men’s federation ATP, welcomed Wimbledon organizers’ decision last Friday to lift a ban on Russian and Belarusian players to allow them to compete as “neutral” athletes in this year’s Grand Slam on grass.
Last week, Ukrainian tennis player Marta Kostyuk said International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach wrongly argued that Russian and Belarusian athletes could return to international competitions because they already compete in some sports without friction.
When asked how she would react if they were allowed to compete in next year’s Olympics in Paris, Svitolina said: “I’m not thinking about Job! My job as a player is to prepare.”
