'They Still Hate Us': Sabalenka On Being From Belarus

Tuesday, 09 May 2023 at 16:30

Updated at Monday, 04 August 2025 at 11:19

byZachary Wimer

Aryna Sabalenka opened up about feeling hate because of her nationality and not being able to change it.

The Belarusian is the second highest-ranked player on the WTA Tour right now, and thanks to her recent success, she's certainly one of the most feared opponents, too.

In the past, Sabalenka spoke about feeling hate in the locker room, and now she opened up about it again ahead of the Italian Open in Rome. She used her press conference at the WTA 1000 tournament in Rome to express her feelings about the ongoing war.

Belarusian athletes are treated the same as Russian athletes due to the country's open support, resulting in their flags not being displayed anywhere. However, flags are the least of concern for Sabalenka.

"Well, it's a tough question because everything, I want to say, you can play around it. It's tough to say. What exactly you mean 'changed'? The ones who was hating us before, I don't know, our country, for where we're from, they still hate us."

"This didn't change and I don't think it's going to change because of the situation. I'm happy that we are allowed playing, that WTA doing everything they can to kind of handle this situation as good as they can. Yeah, that's it."

Sabalenka has been trying to change her mindset to stop thinking about the hate that she feels. In her owns words, the Belarusian is not responsible for the ongoing war, feeling like she didn't do anything wrong to any of the Ukrainians.

"The only thing change for myself, not like I stop thinking about that, I just start focusing on myself and understand that I've done nothing bad to Ukrainians, that is not my fault, not the fault of Russian and Belarusian athletes. We are just athletes who can do what they can and who play sports. This is the only thing what help me to stay focus and just to play tennis."

"This is the only change. The rest, how can I change? It's the war. It's not like yesterday they hate us, today they love us, no. It is how it is. Unfortunately we have zero control on this situation. Yeah, that's the worse, that people expect something from us, and we cannot do anything. That's the bad thing about the situation."