Elina Svitolina criticizes the umbrella organization of women’s professional tennis.
Ukrainian tennis star Elina Svitolina finds the WTA, the umbrella organization of women’s professional tennis, useless, a French sports newspaper L’Equipe tells.
“We are afraid and feel empty. What happened to Lesja is very sad,” Svitolina says to her husband To Lesja Tsurenko referring to.
In March, Tsurenko surrendered her third-round match at the Indian Wells tennis tournament against the Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka against due to a panic attack.
According to Tsurenko, the reason for the panic attack was her pre-match conversation with the CEO of the WTA tour by Steve Simon with.
“He said he does not support war. But if Russian or Belarusian players support the war, that’s just their opinion and it shouldn’t upset me,” Tsurenko told a British newspaper at the time For The Guardian.
Svitolina now opens up to L’Equipe about the horrors of the full-scale war of aggression launched by Russia more than a year ago.
“People who haven’t experienced it really don’t understand what it’s like to be without a home, to feel unsafe everywhere, to fear for a family in Ukraine under bombing and to know that Ukrainian cities are being destroyed,” he says.
“It’s both fear and great emptiness.”
The 28-year-old Tokyo Olympics singles bronze medalist feels that the WTA should have done a lot more on a number of issues.
“It’s too late now.”
Russian and Belarusian athletes are allowed to participate in the tournaments of the WTA and ATP, the umbrella organization of men’s professional tennis, as neutral athletes without country codes.
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