Russia says Ukrainian troops are trying to break through the eastern front
Aryna Sabalenka’s day began with a routine demolition of Russia’s Kamilla Rakhimova, who propelled the world number two, who hails from Belarus, into the second week of the French Open as expected.
But then Sabalenka once again put herself, the tournament and tennis at the center of the debate over sport and the war in Ukraine by refusing to attend the mandatory post-match press conference. She said she had felt unsafe at a previous press conference this week when a journalist from Ukraine asked Sabalenka about her support for President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus, who Russia’s war against Ukraine.
“On Wednesday I didn’t feel safe during the press conference,” Sabalenka said at the beginning of a transcript of her statements following her 6-2, 6-2 win over Rakhimova. “I need to be able to feel safe doing interviews with the journalists after my matches. For my own mental health and wellbeing I have decided to take myself out of this situation today and the tournament has supported me in this decision.
Cédric Laurent, a spokesman for the French tennis federation, the FFT, which organizes this Grand Slam tournament, which has been dominated by geopolitics from the start, said federation officials learned from Sabalenka after the match that she would not participate in the press conference.
French Open officials approved Sabalenka’s decision for Friday’s match, but said no decision had yet been made about her press conferences for the remainder of the tournament.
Sabalenka’s move followed two tense conversations earlier this week with Daria Meshcheriakova, a part-time journalist from Ukraine who works for Tribuna, a sports publication in the country.
During the first exchange, Meshcheriakova asked Sabalenka what her message to the world was about the war and why she had claimed that Ukrainian players “hated” her. Sabalenka denied saying that and then spoke as openly as she ever had about the war.
“Nobody in this world, Russian athletes or Belarusian athletes, supports the war. Nobody,” says Sabalenka, who lives in Miami. “How can we support the war? No one, normal people will never support it.”
Three days later, after Sabalenka’s second-round match, Meshcheriakova challenged her about a letter she supposedly signed in 2020 in support of Lukashenko, “during times when he tortured and beat up protesters in the streets”, and about participating in a New Year party with him.
The letter that Sabalenka supposedly signed has not been made public, and her New Year’s celebration with the Belarusian president has not been independently verified, although there are many photos of Sabalenka and Lukashenko together. In an interview on Friday, Meshcheriakova, who left Kiev for the Netherlands 10 days after the war started when missiles landed close to her apartment and whose parents still live in Russian-occupied Luhansk, said she had learned of the letter and New Year’s celebration from prominent Belarusian journalists who were forced to leave the country.
“It’s true,” said Meshcheriakova, “and you saw how she reacted.”