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It was a special first round. As luck would have it, the Belarusian world number two faced the Ukrainian. At the US Open against another Belarusian former world No. 1 Victoria Azarenka, the world 39th had refused to greet her opponent at the end of their match, simply touching her racket, in protest. This Sunday Porte d'Auteuil, there was neither look nor gesture to his opponent. Marta Kostyuk is one of the players very critical of the response, too soft for her taste, given by the world tennis authorities to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia "I try not to think about these negative things," Sabalenka explained. It is none of my business in the end. It doesn't matter if she hates me. I can't do anything about it. There will always be people who will love me and hate me. If she hates me, it's not reciprocated. Sabalenka repeated at a press conference that if she could "end the war, [she] would," while affirming that "sport should not be politicized." "We are just athletes. If it suits them not to shake my hand, too bad.
»But Ukraine's Kostyuk doesn't think the same. "At first, we considered not going on court when we played Russian or Belarusian players, and we hoped that the others would follow," she told L'Equipe. Polish women, Czechs... But we didn't. We're girls, we don't have balls." Silence and ignorance, as the only acts of resistance...
