Navratilova, who was born in 1956 within the Czechoslovak capital of Prague, remembers taking part in a Russian in a junior event there not lengthy after the Soviet Union and different Warsaw Pact nations invaded in 1968 to suppress a democratic motion.
“I know it’s emotionally so difficult,” she stated. “I was 13, almost 14. I wanted to beat this junior, and, in fact, when I shook her hand after I did, I said, ‘See, your tanks can’t beat us!’ So, I get that. You feel like you are playing for your country, and it hurts! And I knew she had nothing to do with it, but I still took it personally. So, I get where Kostyuk is coming from, how much it hurts, but I don’t think you can punish people to that level.”
Medvedev, who has been based mostly in southern France or Monte Carlo since his early teenagers, stated that in his view, “tennis is a very individual sport.”
He stated that as long as he had the possibility, “I’m going to be there to try to play for the fans, play for other people, for myself also, of course.”
However although each the lads’s and girls’s excursions have reiterated their assist for the present method, Medvedev is aware of there aren’t any ensures. Although he has by no means performed his best tennis within the desert warmth of Indian Wells, one additionally has to marvel how a lot the uncertainty and the battle are impacting his way of thinking or how a lot it might need impacted his tennis in opposition to Monfils on Monday, as Medvedev’s exact sport collapsed within the ultimate set amid a flurry of double faults and uncharacteristic errors.
“Let’s see how the situation evolves,” he stated of allowing Russian athletes to compete.
Subsequent cease: the Miami Open, the place the lads’s foremost draw begins March 23 and the place, with Djokovic nonetheless not anticipated to play due to the journey ban, Medvedev can reclaim the No. 1 rating by reaching the semifinals.
However that, at this stage, is just not the largest of his issues.
