Ukraine and Russia Are Warring at Tennis |
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“Well, OK, in my opinion, you are the same as if you had allowed Hitler’s supporters in,” Oleksandra Oliynykova, a 25-year-old Ukrainian tennis player, declared before the start of this year’s Australian Open. “Russians belong in hell—that’s my clear position.”
With these words, Oliynykova, who is ranked 71st in the world and was playing her first Australian Open, catapulted what had long been percolating into the public light: the ever-uglier acrimony between Ukrainian tennis players and their counterparts from Russia and Belarus who tie themselves too closely to their homelands’ belligerent regimes. The Ukrainian women in particular—such as former No. 3-ranked Elina Svitolina, top players like Marta Kostyuk and Dayana Yastremska, and now Oliynykova—are pushing the tennis world to take a tougher stance on the cruel four-year war that has devastated their country.
“Well, OK, in my opinion, you are the same as if you had allowed Hitler’s supporters in,” Oleksandra Oliynykova, a 25-year-old Ukrainian tennis player, declared before the start of this year’s Australian Open. “Russians belong in hell—that’s my clear position.”
With these words, Oliynykova, who is ranked 71st in the world and was playing her first Australian Open, catapulted what had long been percolating into the public light: the ever-uglier acrimony between Ukrainian tennis players and their counterparts from Russia and Belarus who tie themselves too closely to their homelands’ belligerent regimes. The Ukrainian women in particular—such as former No. 3-ranked Elina Svitolina, top players like Marta Kostyuk and Dayana Yastremska, and now Oliynykova—are pushing the tennis world to take a tougher stance on the cruel four-year war that has devastated their country.
Russia’s assault on Ukraine burst onto the courts immediately after the full-scale invasion began in 2022. The Ukrainians stopped shaking hands with Russian and Belarusian players after matches (Russian troops invaded northern Ukraine from Belarus. Belarusian solders did not participate—at least not under Belarus’s flag—but the authoritarian Belarusian government is a close ally of Russia).
That year, the Wimbledon Championships banned all players from Russia and Belarus who refused to explicitly condemn their governments, rationalizing the move as “not allowing........