This Sunday, May 28, 2023, Ukrainian player Marta Kostyuk, beaten by Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka, refused to shake hands with her opponent after the match, against a backdrop of War in Ukraine. She was booed by the public at the Porte d’Auteuil.
The war in Ukraine has invited itself onto the Parisian ocher. Booed this Sunday, May 28 by the public at Roland-Garros after her defeat against Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka (world No.2), the Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk did not at all appreciate the hostile attitude of part of the public at the Porte d’Auteuil.
\ud83c\udfbe #Roland Garros | \u2705 It passes for Aryna Sabalenka \ud83c\udde7\ud83c\uddfe against Marta Kostyuk \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6!
\u274c As against the Russian Anastasia Potapova last March, the Ukrainian refuses to shake hands with her opponent.
\u25b6\ufe0f Follow live: https://t.co/XXBXdgXfGf pic.twitter.com/pez1rcUrRF
— francetvsport (@francetvsport) May 28, 2023
And she let it be known: “People should be ashamed!”, She launched in a press conference after this lost meeting 6-3, 6-2. “What happened today, I must admit that I did not expect it,” she told the media again. “When I was in the UK last year, people reacted differently, even in the street. I felt very supported”, launching to hear, that in hollow, this is not the case this year in Paris…
Born twenty years ago in Kiev, a city where her father and grandfather still live and where attacks have been almost daily for weeks, Kostyuk notably criticizes the ATP and WTA for being too accommodating with Russian players. and Belarus, two nations allied against Ukraine in this conflict.
“Nothing has changed”
It is in this dramatic context that the 28th player in the world therefore refused to go to the net to greet Sabalenka after the match point. This is not a first for her, since last year at the US Open, she had already not greeted another Belarusian, Victoria Azarenka, contenting herself with touching the end of her racket with hers. At Roland-Garros this Sunday, Kostyuk did not repeat this gesture, thus suffering boos from the public.
A state of affairs that seems thorny for the governing bodies of tennis. “We have sent quite strong emails (to governing bodies). They told us that they were working on it, that they wanted to help us as much as possible, and then nothing changed,” said the Ukrainian again.
Many international federations have however banned Russians and Belarusians from their competitions following the invasion of the War in Ukraine, which began in February 2022. In tennis, with the exception of selection competitions (Davis Cup and Billie Jean King Cup), they can take part in the professional tennis circuits, under a neutral banner.