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    As the French Open Begins, the War in Ukraine Roils the Locker Room

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    “I feel like it’s not united,” Iga Swiatek, the top-ranked women’s player, said of a decision by the tours to punish Wimbledon for barring players from Russian and Belarus.PARIS — The idea by the men’s and women’s tennis tours was to take a strong stand against Wimbledon’s decision to keep out players from Russia and Belarus, then let tennis and competition move the conversation away from politics and the invasion of Ukraine.It has not worked out that way.On Monday, the second day of the French Open, the politics of tennis and Russia reared its head once more. The professional tours’ announcement Friday night that they would not award rankings points this year at Wimbledon, essentially turning the most prestigious event in tennis into an exhibition and punishing players who did well there last year, has roiled the sport, igniting a sharp debate over the game’s role in a deeply unpopular war and dominating the conversation at the year’s second Grand Slam.Lesia Tsurenko of Ukraine spoke emotionally about the invasion, saying it has made her care little about winning or losing. Iga Swiatek, the world No. 1, talked of the sport being in disarray. Naomi Osaka, one of the biggest stars, said she was leaning toward skipping Wimbledon if the decision not to award rankings points for match victories there stands.“I feel like it’s not united,” Swiatek said after defeating Tsurenko, 6-2, 6-0, in her opening match while wearing a Ukraine pin on her cap, as she has for the past three months. “It’s all the people who are organizing tournaments, like, for example, WTA, ATP and I.T.F., they all have separate views, and it’s not joint. We feel that in the locker room a little bit, so it’s pretty hard.”Swiatek’s comments came shortly after Tsurenko described how lost she has been since late February. Tsurenko, who was ranked as high as No. 23 in 2019, said she at first wanted simply to go home and figure out how she could help with the war effort, but she decided to keep playing and competed in important tournaments in Miami and Indian Wells, Calif.Then, after an early loss at a tournament in Marbella, Spain, and no tournament on her schedule for another three weeks, she realized she had nowhere to live or train. With the help of another player from Ukraine, Marta Kostyuk, she landed at the Piatti Tennis Center in Italy, but the psychological challenge remains of balancing her career while her country faces an existential threat.“I just want to enjoy every match, but at the same time, I don’t feel that I care too much,” she said. “I’m trying to find this balance between just go on court and don’t care versus try to care. In some cases it helps.”Tsurenko spoke emotionally about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying it had made her care little about winning or losing.Thibault Camus/Associated PressAfter feeling emboldened by Wimbledon’s decision to bar players from Russia and Belarus, Tsurenko and her compatriots were disheartened by the WTA’s decision to strike back.“When it’s not in your country you don’t really understand how terrible it is,” Tsurenko said. Compared with what she and her country have been through, giving up the chances for rankings points seems like a small price to pay, she said. “For them, they feel like they are losing their job,” she said of the players who are barred. “I also feel many bad things. I feel a lot of terrible things, and I think, compared to that, losing a chance to play in one tournament is nothing.”She hates the propaganda used by the Russian government to disparage her country. She said no more than five players had expressed their support for her since the start of the war. She dreads being drawn against a Russian player in a tournament.Dayana Yastremska, who is also from Ukraine and who also lost Monday, said the decision to withhold points for Wimbledon was not fair to players from Ukraine.“We are not a happy family right now,” said Yastremska, who still does not have a training base and was unsure where she would spend the next weeks.In an interview this month, Steve Simon, the chief executive of the WTA Tour, said the organization had to live up to its principle that access to tournaments for players should be based on merit alone. He also said that discriminating against a player because of the actions of her country’s government was not acceptable.“I can’t imagine what the Ukrainian people are going through and feeling at this moment, and I feel bad for these athletes who are being asked to take the blame for someone else’s actions,” Simon said.Russian players have expressed disappointment in Wimbledon’s decision and appreciation for the tours’ support in protecting what they view as their right to play, though no player has sought relief in the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Jeffrey Kessler, a lawyer with experience in right-to-play cases, said tennis players from Russia and Belarus would most likely have a strong case.“We are professional athletes, we put effort every day in what we do and basically want to work,” said Karen Khachanov of Russia, who won his opening-round match Sunday and was a semifinalist at Wimbledon last year.One of the few players not to express an opinion was Victoria Azarenka of Belarus, a former world No. 1 and member of the WTA Players’ Council, but her distress over the disagreement was clear.Glyn Kirk/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“I say one thing, it’s going to be criticized; I say another thing, it’s going to be criticized,” said Azarenka, who once had a close relationship with President Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus.In its statement Friday, the ATP said its rules and agreements existed to protect the rights of all players as a whole: “Unilateral decisions of this nature, if unaddressed, set a damaging precedent for the rest of the tour. Discrimination by individual tournaments is simply not viable on a tour that operates in more than 30 countries.”The tangible impact of the ATP and WTA decisions on the sport was evident Monday as Osaka made her feelings known about possibly skipping Wimbledon. She is not a fan of grass surfaces to begin with, and without an opportunity to improve her ranking, she might struggle to find motivation.“The intention was really good, but the execution is kind of all over the place,” Osaka said.Swiatek, who is from Poland, which has supported Ukraine perhaps more than any other country, said locker room conversations, which might once have been about changing balls during matches, have shifted to discussions of war, peace and politics. She stopped short of overtly stating her position, but she hardly masked her sentiments.“All the Russian and Belarusian players are not responsible in what’s going on in their country,” Swiatek said. “But on the other hand, the sport has been used in politics and we are kind of public personas and we have some impact on people. It would be nice if the people who are making decisions were making decisions that are going to stop Russia’s aggression.” More

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      Ukraine Team Finds Escape, and Almost an Upset, Against U.S.

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      A supportive tennis crowd in Asheville, N.C., watched the Ukrainians nearly pull off an upset of the United States in a Billie Jean King Cup qualifier.ASHEVILLE, N.C. — The Ukrainian comeback attempt had come up just short, and Dayana Yastremska and her four teammates were preparing to pose for their final formal photograph at this Billie Jean King Cup qualifier.The blue and yellow ribbon representing Ukraine that had been stenciled onto the tennis court by special permission was no longer visible, obscured by the red, white and blue streamers that had fallen to the ground as part of the Americans’ celebration after their 3-2 victory Saturday night.The Ukrainians, with some help from the United States’ team captain, Kathy Rinaldi, cleared away some of the streamers. But as another official began removing them altogether, Yastremska insisted that they remained next to the ribbon for the photograph.“They were in the colors of U.S.A., and I wanted to leave this near the Ukrainian colors,” she said in an interview. “Because I think it’s a good sign of the support we got here and a sign for peace. I wanted it to stay.”It was that kind of week in Asheville: The symbolic gestures were more indelible than the results, and the usual rules of engagement were rewritten in an attempt to dull the edges of a national team competition.“It’s been hard not to cry,” said Billie Jean King, 78, the American who once starred in this competition, which was formerly known as the Fed Cup long before it was renamed for her in 2020. She visited both teams on Friday shortly before play began. “I just hope the Ukrainians had a moment of escapism.”After Russia invaded Ukraine in February, United States Tennis Association officials offered to postpone this qualifying-round match. The Ukrainians demurred, but when it came time to book hotels in Asheville, they conceded they no longer had the money for the usual visiting team expenses.“We said, ‘No problem, we will cover all your local costs,’” said Stacey Allaster, the chief executive for professional tennis at the U.S.T.A., which also provided support staff to the delegation. “With the war, it’s so horrifying what’s going on. What can any individual do? But we can all do little things, and what we can do is provide a platform for the Ukrainians to demonstrate that they are strong and fighting and are not going to quit.”The posters around this city in the Blue Ridge Mountains did not read, “U.S.A. vs. Ukraine.” They read, “U.S.A. hosts Ukraine.” On changeovers, the scoreboard flashed information on how to donate to the Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund, and about $225,000 was raised in connection with the matches. The American cheering squad supported individual players instead of chanting, “Go U.S.A.!”“We were just trying to find the proper tone and balance,” Allaster said.The Ukrainian players, all of whom still have family members in their embattled country, felt the job was done right: from the informal dinner for the teams at an Asheville restaurant on Tuesday night to the stirring a cappella rendition of the Ukrainian national anthem by Julia Kashirets that left members of both teams in tears minutes before the matches began.Julia Kashirets sang the Ukrainian national anthem at the Billie Jean King Cup qualifier on Saturday.Eakin Howard/Getty Images“We came here to play not against the U.S.A. but with the U.S.A. for Ukraine, and that’s how it felt to me,” Katarina Zavatska said. That was in part because of the numerous fans with Ukrainian connections and flags. Christina Dyakiv, 15, from William Floyd High School in Mastic Beach on Long Island, traveled to Asheville with her Ukrainian-born parents. Juliia Sherrod, a Ukrainian former leading junior player who now lives in Knoxville, Tenn., made the two-hour drive on short notice.“Every little win counts in any field for Ukraine right now,” said Sherrod, 35, who also goes by Yulia. “In the big scheme of things, a tennis match is no big deal, but it still means a lot.”In that supportive atmosphere, the Ukrainians nearly managed the upset. After falling behind, 0-2, on Friday, they won both singles matches on Saturday in straight sets. Yastremska, a former top-25 player now ranked 93rd on the WTA Tour, often overwhelmed No. 14 Jessica Pegula. More surprisingly, the 201st-ranked Zavatska defeated No. 46 Shelby Rogers.That meant the concluding doubles match would be decisive, and Pegula and Asia Muhammad, making her King Cup debut, earned a 7-6 (5), 6-3 victory over Yastremska and Lyudmyla Kichenok.“All day we just really felt that fighting spirit of Ukraine,” Rogers said. “It was really special to see, but really tough to go against. I’m just so proud of my team for stepping up to that, having nerves of steel.”Asia Muhammad, left, celebrated with Jessica Pegula after winning the concluding doubles match that qualified the U.S. team for the Billie Jean King Cup finals.Susan Mullane/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe first set of the doubles match came down to very little. With Muhammad serving at 5-6, 30-30, the Americans had to scramble to win the longest, most spectacular rally of the match, and at 5-5 in the tiebreaker, Kichenok’s full-cut passing shot struck the very top of the tape.“She wanted to take a little bit of risk,” Yastremska said, making a tiny space between her right thumb and index finger. “Just like this, in the net!”The victory qualified the Americans for the 12-team King Cup finals in November, but the Ukrainians are not necessarily eliminated. One wild-card slot is available, and depending on which nation is selected to host the finals, it might be available to Ukraine.A full-strength Ukrainian team could be formidable: No. 25 Elina Svitolina and No. 53 Marta Kostyuk, the country’s two highest-ranked singles players, missed this match because of injuries and personal issues.“I don’t want to be arrogant, but maybe we deserve this,” Zavatska said.Russia won the King Cup last year before being barred from this year’s competition because of the invasion. Olga Savchuk, the Ukrainian team captain in Asheville, believes tennis needs to take the next step and bar Russian players from individual events as well, something Wimbledon is considering.“Why is somebody who works in McDonald’s in Russia losing their job because of sanctions and the tennis players are exceptions?” Savchuk said.Zavatska, 22, who is based in southern France, believes the Russians need to take responsibility and “feel discomfort too, as long as people and children are dying in Ukraine.” She said some Russian and Belarusian players had told her the news of atrocities coming out of Ukraine was “fake.” The guilt some of the players felt in the first month at being safe while other Ukrainians were in so much peril has been superseded by the belief that they can be sporting ambassadors.“With people watching us back home on TV, you want them just to take a couple of hours to enjoy the tennis and to see that some Ukrainian girls are fighting for the country as well,” Yastremska said.Katarina Zavatska of Ukraine celebrated her win against Shelby Rogers of the United States on Saturday, which put the countries in a 2-2 tie.Susan Mullane/USA Today Sports, via ReutersSusan Mullane/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe arena in Asheville, in scale and design, reminded Savchuk and Yastremska of where the Ukrainian team played home matches in Kharkiv, which has been heavily damaged by Russian bombardments.Savchuk, now based in London, was born and raised in Donetsk in the disputed Donbas region and her father remains in Donetsk. “He decided to stay because it’s home,” said Savchuk, who said her relatives have spent long stretches in bomb shelters.Kichenok fled the country after the war started and needed 31 hours to get from Kyiv to Moldova with her parents. Her twin, Nadiia, also part of Ukraine’s team, left Kyiv just before Russia invaded, traveling to California with her husband.“It was two days of hell for me until they got to a safe place,” Nadiia said of her family. “I had constant panic attacks. I never experienced anything like that, like 40 minutes your body is shaking, and you don’t know what to do besides deep breaths.”The Kichenoks’ father, who is 64, has since returned to Ukraine and tried to volunteer for the military despite exceeding the age limit.“They told him, ‘Grandfather, go back home,’” Nadiia Kichenok said. “‘We have too many people here. We will call you when we need you.’”Yastremska, 21, fled Odesa, her home city, with her 15-year-old sister, Ivanna, crossing into Romania after saying goodbye to their parents on the Ukrainian side of the Danube River. The sisters have been traveling on tour together for nearly two months while their parents remain in Odesa, where one of their tasks has been organizing relief efforts through Yastremska’s charitable foundation.Unable to return home, the Yastremska sisters remain without a fixed training base, but they will head next to Madrid to prepare for the clay-court season. The Kichenok twins will travel to Stuttgart, Germany, for a tournament, and Zavatska will return to Cannes, France, where she is sharing her small apartment with her mother and other relations who fled Ukraine.After a week of togetherness and a final night of karaoke with the Americans on Saturday, the Ukrainians will move on, but with the hope that Asheville and the wider world do not move on too quickly.“I don’t want people to get used to this grief that we are experiencing,” Nadiia Kichenok said. “We don’t want people to be sorry for us. We want them to stay strong with us, fighting for freedom and humanity.” More

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      At Indian Wells, Ukrainian Tennis Stars Take Their Fight to the Court

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      Playing through fear of the war, Marta Kostyuk said that she must show “what it’s like having a Ukrainian heart” and that it “hurts” to see Russian players at the tournament.INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — The Ukrainian teenager Marta Kostyuk and the Belgian veteran Maryna Zanevska played for more than three hours in the sun and a swirling wind.They played through pain and concern about issues much larger than tennis, and when they met on the same side of the net after Kostyuk’s victory, 6-7 (5), 7-6 (6), 7-5, in the opening round on Thursday, they shared a long, tearful embrace and a similar message.“I told her that everything is going to be all right,” Zanevska said.“I told her that everything is going to be OK, that our parents are going to be OK,” Kostyuk said.Indian Wells is a 10-hour time change and more than 6,000 miles away from the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, where Kostyuk was born, and from the Ukrainian port city of Odessa, where Zanevska was born before immigrating to Belgium in her teens and leaving her relatives behind.But Ukraine’s war with Russia, now into its third week, still feels inescapably close to the Ukrainian players competing at the BNP Paribas Open.“It’s just terrifying,” said Kostyuk, 19, one of tennis’s brightest young talents. “Especially in the beginning, the first couple days, my whole family was there. They were all in one house, so if anything was about to happen, I would lose the whole family. So, thinking of it is just you go to sleep and you don’t know if you wake up the next morning having the family.”She continued: “I’m coping the way I’ve been coping. Everyone is different. I chose to fight. I came here. At the beginning, I was feeling guilty that I’m not there. You know, the whole family is there but not me. I was feeling guilty that I’m playing tennis, that I have the sky above me that is blue and bright and very calm and mixed feelings. But you can’t be in this position, because everyone is fighting how they can fight, and my job is to play tennis, and this is the biggest way I can help in the current situation.”Daniil Medvedev of Russia, left, with another Russian player, Karen Khachanov, at Indian Wells this week.Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesRussian players are in Indian Wells, too, but while Kostyuk played with Ukraine next to her name in the draw and on the scoreboard, the Russians and the Belarusian athletes, whose country has cooperated with Russia’s attack on Ukraine, are playing without national symbols or identification, as mandated by the men’s and women’s tours.Ukraine’s biggest tennis star, Elina Svitolina, lobbied successfully for that policy before she agreed to play Russia’s Anastasia Potapova in a match at the tournament in Monterrey, Mexico, earlier this month. But Kostyuk believes Russian players should be barred from competing on tour altogether, even as individuals.“I don’t agree with the action that has been taken,” she said. “Look at the other sports. Look at the big sports, what they did.”Russian and Belarusian athletes were banned from the Paralympics in Beijing, and Russian national teams and clubs have been banned from major global sports like soccer and basketball. But though Russian and Belarusian track and field athletes have been barred from major competitions like this year’s world outdoor championships in Eugene, Ore., individual Russian athletes are still allowed to compete internationally for their non-Russian clubs in, for example, European soccer leagues and the N.H.L.Daniil Medvedev, the Russian men’s star who recently displaced Novak Djokovic atop the rankings, acknowledged that “there is always a possibility” that Russian tennis players could be banned altogether.“We never know,” Medvedev said in Indian Wells on Wednesday. “The way the situation is evolving in other sports, some sports made this decision, especially the team sports.”But for now, tennis has taken a comparatively moderate approach, although this year’s men’s and women’s tour events in Moscow have been canceled and Russian teams have been barred from the Davis Cup and Billie Jean King Cup.“I do feel really sorry that the Russian players have to go through this, but the Ukrainian people are going through much worse things,” Maryna Zanevska said.Clive Brunskill/Getty Images“It’s a very tricky thing because I see that all other sports are removing Russians from their competitions,” Zanevska said. “And in the tennis community they did a few steps like removing the flag, and I can imagine it’s tough for the Russian players as well. But really unfortunately, Ukraine needs support as much as possible from all over the world, all the communities, all the types of sports. It counts. I do feel really sorry that the Russian players have to go through this, but the Ukrainian people are going through much worse things.”The Russian star Andrey Rublev wrote “No war please” on the camera in Dubai last month, and others like Medvedev and the Belarusian women’s stars Victoria Azarenka and Aryna Sabalenka have called for “peace.” But Kostyuk, whose yellow-and-blue tennis outfit here matches the colors of Ukraine’s flag, said she did not like such vague appeals.“For me ‘No war’ means a lot of things,” she said. “No war? We can stop the war by giving up, but I know this was never an option.”She added: “These ‘No war’ statements, they hurt me — they hurt me because they have no substance.”Such sentiments are, nonetheless, too strong for the tournament organizers here. On Thursday, as Kostyuk and Zanevska played in Stadium 6, Wilfred Williams and Mary Beth Williams, American fans, held up a homemade banner that featured two Ukrainian flags and two messages written in Russian: the word “war” with a diagonal line through it and “Let’s go!”After the match, a tournament official told the Williamses, who are siblings, that they could not continue to display the banner. The BNP Paribas Open does not allow politically oriented signs, although national flags are permitted, and the tournament, in a show of support, has placed Ukrainian flags in its two main stadiums.“We just love peace and love tennis,” Mary Beth Williams said.Ukraine’s biggest tennis star, Elina Svitolina, at the Monterrey Open last month.Daniel Becerril/ReutersKostyuk said she had been in Kyiv in late 2013 and early 2014 when a series of protests led to the ousting of Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s pro-Russia president who later fled the country.“I remember how united everyone was and I remember that we changed the government, and the fact that the guy decided that he thought that finally after eight years we would want to join him, I think, is a very big mistake,” Kostyuk said, referring to Vladimir V. Putin, Russia’s president.Both Kostyuk and Zanevska, whose parents remain in Odessa, said they were disappointed that Russian players had not expressed regret for the invasion to them directly.Russia-Ukraine War: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 4On the ground. More