Imagine this for a living: you go to work and you are quizzed about your opinions on the war in Ukraine and then how you will inspire youngsters should you reach the top of your profession.
Sabalenka land
Things have become a tad frosty on the tour between the Ukrainians and the Russians and Belarusians ever since the Russian president Vladimir Putin sent his country’s forces into Ukraine via Belarus. The Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk refused to shake hands with Victoria Azarenka from Belarus at the US Open last year. So no surprise when she didn’t do the same with Sabalenka at the end of their first round match on centre court on Day 1. Some spectators booed such behaviour. “I can imagine if they are going to shake hands with us, and then what's going to happen to them from Ukrainian side,” posited Sabalenka “So I understand that. And I understand that this is not kind of, like, personal, you know. That's it.”
No quarter
The third Grand Slam tournament of the year on the grass at Wimbledon in London will be the focus for Marta Kostyuk as she licks her wounds after her straight sets defeat to Aryna Sabalenka. In her post-match press conference the 20-year-old turned on the crowd for booing her. "I didn't expect it,” she fumed. “People should be honestly embarrassed." Kostyuk has been calling for the exclusion of Russian and Belarusian athletes from the international circuit while the fighting continues in Ukraine. And she has complained about the response of the ATP and WTA which run the men’s and women’s tours respectively. "I just feel like we've tried all the possible things we could try,” she said. “I just hope that someone like the United Kingdom, for example, will just not grant visas and they will not be able to enter the country, and they will not play.”
Goals
Aryna Sabalenka could become world number one at the end of the tournament. The permutations – if the review understands them - are quite simple: do better than the top seed Iga Swiatek. And Sabalanka – after being grilled about geopolitics – was encouraged to wax lyrical on her message to youngsters - should she get to the trop of the tree. “I'm from Belarus ... have been working really hard to get to this level,” she said. "This is the message to a lot of young athletes from small countries, who don't have enough money: that they can do well in this sport. That they have to work hard and believe in themselves and they can do whatever they want to. This would be my main message as world number one.” A kind of warrior mode, then.
Beware Greeks bearing humour
Wow, the review has gone classical on Day 1. More justification for the subsequent trash and low brow allusions. The cause of transient high? Stefanos Tsitsipas. The 24-year-old Athenian had to grind his way past the unseeded Czech Jiri Vesely who defintely had his chances during the encounter on centre court. Vesely served for the first set but fluffed that and lost it. He also had four set points - three of them consecutive - to take the tie into a decider. But he squandered all of those too. Tsitsipas was far more ruthless. He exploited his first match point to claim the spoils after three and a quarter hours. When asked about how he would use the time until his next match on Wednesday, Tsitsipas said he would drink some red wine and eat baguette. The spectators on centre court chortled approvingly. And why not? Most of them probably won't be around to stomach his next possible dollop of post-match patter.
Hail a beaten man
Kudos to Constant Lestienne who at 31 was playing in the main draw at the French Open for the first time. The Frenchman led the 11th seed Karen Khachanov a merry dance for a good hour or so of their first round match but then he succumbed to the calf injury which has been plaguing him of late. "Yes, it's frustrating," said Lestienne after his five-set defeat. "But that's part of me. That's part of my career. I've had a lot of physical problems. I'm not like all of these machines that manage to play one match after the other. But that's the way it's always been for me. It was my first Roland Garros and it was a wonderful time."
