Ukrainian tennis player Marta Kostyuk revealed Paula Badosa approached her in Indian Wells to ask how she was doing after the Russian invasion of Ukraine started. Kostyuk was grateful to Badosa for checking on her and asked the new world No.
2 if she was interested in playing doubles with her. Badosa apparently told her she “does not play doubles at all” but then teamed up with Aryna Sabalenka in Miami and Stuttgart. That was when Kostyuk decided she would never again ask Badosa to be doubles partners.
“In early March, when we arrived in Indian Wells, it was the first time Paula and I met. She approached me and asked me, how I was, if everything was fine with my family. And that was it. In Indian Wells or in Dubai, I asked her if she would like to play doubles with me because I thought we could do well.
She said, ‘let’s try to play in Madrid, let’s try somewhere else, but actually I don’t play doubles at all’ Then I saw that she was playing doubles with Aryna Sabalenka in Miami and Stuttgart. It really surprised me.
I realized I would no longer ask her about playing doubles together,” Kostyuk told btu.org.ua.
💬 Marta Kostyuk told BTU how the tennis world responded to the Ukrainian players’ latest statement and her own views whether sport and politics should not be mixed as some players suggested👇https://t.co/8JpVztEGFU
.@marta_kostyuk — Ukrainian Tennis 🎾 ENG (@ukrtennis_eng) April 30, 2022
Kostyuk on Badosa’s comments
When asked about the Wimbledon decision, Badosa suggested sports shouldn’t be mixed with politics.
“It was strange to me, but she is not the only one who feels this way. Many players are not in this triangle that we are in. They are very scared to think that there is some kind of criminal liability in Russia for ‘spreading the fake news about the war,’ as it is called there.
It frightens them and they refer to this, they say, there are such laws, they also have families, and so on,” Kostyuk said. Meanwhile, Kostyuk reached the Madrid second round, where she plays Emma Raducanu.
