Elina Svitolina opened up about the recent struggles of the Ukrainian players and the incident with the WTA.
The return was a pretty positive one all things considered because she nearly beat a player who is fairly high-ranked and does well on clay generally. Putintseva needed almost three hours to finish off Svitolina who showed off good tennis nearly 13 months after she last stood on a tennis court.
In the interview specifically, Svitolina touched upon Lesia Tsurenko's recent experience in Indian Wells and how she understands what she went through as she explained in a talk with L'Equipe.
We are afraid, we feel empty. What is happening to Lesia is very sad. People who haven’t experienced it can’t really understand what it feels like to have no home, to feel safe nowhere, to have family in Ukraine, under the bombs, to know that Ukrainian cities are being destroyed. It’s both fear and a great emptiness.
Her interview also featured a very direct call-out of the WTA and its leadership as she's not happy with how they handled anything related to the War in Ukraine. It's a common criticism from the Ukrainian side but it's a complicated issue that can't be handled well to satisfy all sides yet Svitolina wanted to see more.
The WTA should have done more, much more, on many issues. Now it’s too late. There have been a lot of press releases, a lot of interviews. It was useless.
She's called for the banning Russian players from the Olympic Games before but when asked about it this time, she revealed that it's not her job to make a decision. She will just try to get ready for them as a player.
I don’t think about it. It’s up to the Olympic Committee and the Ukrainian Committee to think about it and do their job! My job, as a player, is to get ready.
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