Ukrainian tennis star Marta Kostyuk giving Russian Mirra Andreeva the chilly shoulder after her French Open loss on Thursday introduced the battle between their nations again into the general public conscience.
Andreeva beat Kostyuk 6-1, 6-3 at Roland-Garros in Paris, reaching her first Grand Slam final. After the match, her Ukrainian opponent refused to shake arms and take an image. Whereas exiting the court docket, she blew kisses to the gang.
Some could view this as poor sportsmanship, but it surely’s extra difficult than that. Kostyuk has been an outspoken critic of the continuing Ukraine-Russia conflict, which not too long ago struck near dwelling.
Ukraine-Russia battle escalated throughout 2026 French Open
Ukraine and Russia have been at conflict since February 2022, and it is not going to finish anytime quickly. Russia launched a missile/drone strike on Tuesday, killing at the least 22 civilians. That comes after Russia held one other strike from Might 23-24.
That assault destroyed Kostyuk’s dwelling in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. Her household survived. She learned of the news earlier than her first match in Paris. In a post-match information convention, she confirmed the harm on her telephone.
“If the [missile] was 100 meters nearer, I in all probability would not have a mother and sister right now,” she stated (h/t James Sharpe of the Every day Mail).
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,
‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
fbq(‘init’, ‘1324276914788316’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
