French Open 2023: 'People should be embarrassed' — Ukraine’s Kostyuk hits back at crowd after boos

Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk says that she was surprised to see the fans whistling at her after she refused to shake hands with Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka post their match at Court Philippe Chatrier in the French Open 2023 on Sunday. Kostyuk has decided to not exchange post-match pleasantries with players from Russia and Belarus and on Sunday, after her 6-3, 6-2 defeat to Sabalenka, the Ukrainian avoided the Belarusian and directly went up to the chair umpire for a handshake. Ukraine is currently engaged in a war with Russia after the latter started to invade the country in February 2022. Russia is assisted in the invasion by Belarus. “I have to say," Kostyuk said after the match. “I didn’t expect it. … People should be, honestly, embarrassed.” “I want to see people react to it in 10 years when the war is over. I think they will not feel really nice about what they did,” she said.

Ukrainian tennis player Marta Kostyuk refused to shake hands with Belarusian Arina Sobolenko at the Roland Garros tournament. pic.twitter.com/nfKBDsKWG9

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) May 28, 2023

Kostyuk is based now in Monaco, and her mother and sister are there, too, but her father and grandfather are still in Kyiv. Perhaps the fans on hand at the clay-court event’s main stadium were unaware of the backstory and figured Kostyuk simply failed to follow usual tennis etiquette. Initially, Sabalenka — who had approached the net as if anticipating some sort of exchange with Kostyuk — thought the noise was directed at her. “At first, I thought they were booing me,” Sabalenka said. “I was a little confused, and I was, like, ‘OK, what should I do?” Sabalenka tried to ask the chair umpire what was going on. She looked up at her entourage in the stands, too. Then she realized that while she is aware Kostyuk and other Ukrainian tennis players have been declining to greet opponents from Russia or Belarus after a match, the spectators might not have known — and so responded in a way Sabalenka didn’t think was deserved. “They saw it,” she surmised, “as disrespect (for) me.” Sabalenka called Sunday “emotionally tough” — because of mundane, tennis-related reasons, such as the nerves that come with any first-round match, but more significantly because of the unusual circumstances involving the war. “You’re playing against (a) Ukrainian and you never know what’s going to happen. You never know how people will — will they support you or not?” explained Sabalenka, who went down an early break and trailed 3-2 before reeling off six consecutive games with powerful first-strike hitting. “I was worried, like, people will be against me, and I don’t like to play when people (are) so much against me.” A journalist from Ukraine asked Sabalenka what her message to the world is with regard to the war, particularly in this context: She can overtake Iga Swiatek at No. 1 in the rankings based on results over the next two weeks and, therefore, serves as a role model. “Nobody in this world, Russian athletes or Belarusian athletes, support the war. Nobody. How can we support the war? Nobody — normal people — will never support it. Why (do) we have to go loud and say that things? This is like: ‘One plus one (is) two.’ Of course we don’t support war,” Sabalenka said. “If it could affect anyhow the war, if it could like stop it, we would do it. But unfortunately, it’s not in our hands.” When a portion of those comments was read to Kostyuk by a reporter, she responded in calm, measured tones that she doesn’t get why Sabalenka does not come out and say that “she personally doesn’t support this war.”

Marta Kostyuk said she does not respect Aryna Sabalenka:

“To reject her responsibility of having an opinion on the most important things in the world, I cannot respect that. She said I hate her. I never said I hate her, I just don’t respect her”

https://t.co/fF76Bw2Trk

— The Tennis Letter (@TheTennisLetter) May 28, 2023

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Kostyuk also rejected the notion that players from Russia or Belarus could be in a tough spot upon returning to those countries if they were to speak out about what is happening in Ukraine. “I don’t know why it’s a difficult situation,” Kostyuk said with a chuckle. “I don’t know what other players are afraid of,” she said. “I go back to Ukraine, where I can die any second from drones or missiles or whatever it is.” With AP inputs Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.