Ukrainian tennis player Dayana Yastremskaya He talked about the importance of supporting the fans and the lack of opportunities to return to Ukraine.
“There were so many incidents off the field that it was difficult to continue playing at my level, very difficult to deal with. And a lot of people condemn you, a lot of people write bad things, but at the same time they don’t know what’s going on in your life. For example, the game against Bouchard in Madrid on the day my grandfather died.
I don’t pay attention to it, it doesn’t catch me, but sometimes people reproach you without knowing everything that is going on in your life, writing that you are not concentrating on tennis is a bit insulting. For example, when you post a photo or some kind of video from life, they immediately begin to reproach that you need to walk less, you need less, less than that.
People, you don’t know how much effort has gone into the work, how much time and sweat has been invested, and what a great desire there is to get back to where you were and get even better. I really want a little more support, a little more positive, especially from the Ukrainian fans. Often times they send me screenshots of how many people left you in different groups, comments during the match, and moreover, these are your people from your home country. Of course, I would like to send more positive messages to Ukrainian players because tennis players don’t always talk about everything that happened in their life and what they’ve been through, what challenges they’ve faced. So it seems to me that it’s just a wish from myself that people would react a little more calmly to unsuccessful results.
Another important point is that between tournaments I always returned home to Odessa. It helped me a lot in healing because nowhere can you relax and gain energy like at home. Home is home. And now I can not constantly return to Odessa, and this is very difficult for me.
The last time I was in Odessa was before the Billie Jean King Cup. I returned for a few days to go to Kiev to visit my grandfather, whom I had not seen for six months. And then you can say goodbye to him. And before that, I hadn’t been home for about six months. And it was a long time ago when I came in the penultimate time. I really miss being home with my family for two or three days, sometimes a week between tournaments, being at home, gaining that energy and just being in my room. Constantly feeling like you don’t have a home. Although my mother and Ivanka are in Nice, we have an apartment there and my sister trains there, still not the same. I really want to have a place where you can come back like this and feel at home,” Dayana said.
