At Roland Garros,
The organizers of the Roland-Garros tournament, which has just officially started this Sunday under a beautiful Parisian sun, had to eat them at the end of last week when they discovered, against a backdrop of war in Ukraine, that the draw had given birth to potentially explosive opposition between Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk and Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka. The young native of kyiv had also warned even before arriving in Paris that she would refuse whatever happens to shake hands with the world number 2 after the match. And she kept her word, heading after her defeat in straight sets, head down to her seat without even looking at Sabalenka, who was waiting near the net in case the Ukrainian changed her mind. Nothing came of it, and Kostyuk’s gesture was profusely whistled by the Lenglen’s morning audience, giving rise to a rather comical scene since Sabalenka initially believed that the whistles were for her.
Offended by what she thought were whistles against her, the Belarusian returned to the court miming the salute to the theater as if to invite the public to go to hell. In a post-match press conference, the player will end up apologizing. “I didn’t understand what was going on. We all know Ukrainian girls don’t shake hands with us, so it’s no surprise. But maybe it was for the audience. They saw it as a lack of respect, but at first I thought the whistles were for me. I was like, “Okay, what am I supposed to do?” I spoke to my team to make sure I understood. So thank you to the public, and sorry for what I did first.
1st round at Roland and drone attack in kyiv
From the press box, we scrutinized the reactions of the public for a long time to find out if they would support one player more than the other. And according to the very many “come on Marta! Everything seemed to indicate that the scales tipped for the Ukrainian. Missed… Note, this is not the first time that our truffle dog flair has failed us. Still, the context of this very special match and the media skirmishes between the two players in the days preceding the meeting somewhat took the sporting fight to the background. Players included. “I was probably a little nervous because of that before the match, admitted Sabalenka after her victory. You are playing against a Ukrainian girl and you don’t know what will happen, whether people will support you or not… I was worried, I wondered if people were going to be against me. »
So it was quite the opposite. The question now arises of the reaction of the Parisian public. Basically, if Aryna Sabalenka certainly did not deserve to be rotten for an invasion of Ukraine that she neither decided nor supported – she repeated again in a press conference that “no Russian or Belarusian athlete supports the war” – we cannot morally condemn the reaction of Kostyuk, whose family lives in Kiev and risks “every second to die under the fire of Russian drones”, as she explained in a press conference.
The day before, she was still on her phone until 5 a.m. to follow the Russian drone attack on the Ukrainian capital live. Not really the ideal before tackling a grand slam match against the world number 2. “I am proud of our air defense system, coward Kostyuk sadly. It’s all been part of my life for more than fifteen months, I don’t know how to explain what I’m feeling, I’m trying my best to put my emotions out of court, I think I’m doing it better than before, but of course it affects me. »
Sabalenka understands Kostyuk’s gesture
In the (very) small press room n°2 of Roland-Garros full to bursting, more than an hour after her defeat, Marta Kostyuk let nothing show of her anger against the French public. But his words didn’t lie. “We will see what they will think of their gesture when the war is over, I think they will not be proud of them, she declared. I had announced that I would not shake his hand, I do not see why people could have thought that I was suddenly going to change my mind. At Wimbledon last year people were very supportive of me, I sincerely thought that would be the case today…”
Updated by a British colleague Sabalenka’s words during his visit to a press conference, Marta Kostyuk did not want to review his judgment about him, quite the contrary. “She had never said before that she did not support this war, and I think she is wrong when she says that no Russian or Belarusian athlete supports her. She should confine herself to speaking only for herself, because I personally know tennis people who support this war, she assured. And, as a possible world number 1, her voice carries, she could send a strong message to the 80-85% of Russians who support the war but she doesn’t, that’s why I don’t respect her . »
Sabalenka will remain unmoved by Kostyuk’s words and attitudes. Better, she claims to understand his reaction. “If they (Ukrainian women) shake hands with us, what will happen to them in their country? I understand that. And I know it’s not personal. And she didn’t deserve to leave the court under the whistles. It is hoped that the audience at Lenglen will reflect on this.