Aryna Sabalenka reaffirmed her opposition to the Russian invasion of Ukraine – but said there is nothing a tennis player can do to change the situation.
The French Open second seed addressed the issue which has split tennis after defeating Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk 6-3, 6-2 to reach the second round on Sunday.
The match ended – as expected – without a player handshake at the net, as the Ukrainian refused to interact with an opponent from an aggressor nation.
“Nobody in this world, Russian athletes or Belarusian athletes, support the war,” Sabalenka said.
“How can we support the war? Nobody, normal people will never support it.
“Of course we don’t support war. If we could like stop it, we would do it.
“But unfortunately, it’s not in our hands”
The Australian Open winner who has never passed the third round at Roland Garros said that crowd jeering of Kostyuk as she left the court was uncalled for:
“I understand why (Ukrainians) are not shaking hands with us. If they shake hands with us, then what’s gonna happen to them from the Ukrainian side.
“And I understand that this is not kind of like personally.
“(And) I think she (didn’t) deserve to leave the court that way.”
