{"id":57073,"date":"2023-06-02T14:16:20","date_gmt":"2023-06-02T18:16:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=57073"},"modified":"2023-06-02T14:16:20","modified_gmt":"2023-06-02T18:16:20","slug":"aryna-sabalenka-skips-press-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2023\/06\/02\/aryna-sabalenka-skips-press-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"Aryna Sabalenka Skips Open-Air Press Conference After Being Questioned on Position on Russia-Ukraine War"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>World No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka skipped her post-match press conference on Friday afternoon shortly after advancing to the fourth round of the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/french-open\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">French Open<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Sabalenka <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TennisChannel\/status\/1664666585682829312\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">cited her mental health<\/a> and well-being as primary drivers in taking that stance. The decision not to hold an open-air interview was unanimously given the all-clear by the tournament organizers.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, the French Open authorities selected a handful of journalists who held the presser behind closed doors and which was limited to questions that were tennis-related.<\/p>\n<p>Following her third-round win over Kamilla Rakhimova, Sabalenka was nowhere to be seen in the French Open media room where players must follow protocol and take part in post-match press conferences.<\/p>\n<p>Sabalenka&#8217;s decision not to hold an open-air interview in the press room comes <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/molly_mcelwee\/status\/1663957092963581974\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">on the backdrop of a tense exchange<\/a> between herself and a Ukrainian journalist on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Sabalenka was bombarded with questions on <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2022\/03\/02\/tennis-russia-invasion-ukraine\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">the current invasion of Ukraine by Russia<\/a>&#8211;in which Belarus is a close ally of Russia&#8211;by a staunch Ukrainian journalist who asked her to condemn the war in the open-air session following her second-round win on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Sabalenka, feeling coerced, politely declined to comment.<\/p>\n<h3>Here is an excerpt of Aryna Sabalenka&#8217;s heated interaction with a Ukrainian journalist<\/h3>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Tense exchange at Aryna Sabalenka&#39;s press conference, when a Ukrainian journalist asked her a pointed question about her previous support for Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/dHJK0Cuysm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/dHJK0Cuysm<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Molly McElwee (@molly_mcelwee) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/molly_mcelwee\/status\/1663957092963581974?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 31, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>On Friday, Sabalenka told reporters, &#8220;For my own mental health and well-being, I decided to take myself out of this situation today and the tournament has supported me in this. On Wednesday I didn&#8217;t feel safe in the press conference.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Sabalenka asked the tournament to skip the traditional press conference and instead spoke to a few journalists selected by the <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/RolandGarros?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#RolandGarros<\/a> organization: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/XDYbZKbGAA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/XDYbZKbGAA<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Gaspar Ribeiro Lan\u00e7a (@gasparlanca) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/gasparlanca\/status\/1664650268707897345?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 2, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Sabalenka has been the subject of a massive backlash from Ukrainian journalists and felt the full wrath of Ukrainian tennis player Marta Kostyuk, whom she defeated in the first round.<\/p>\n<p>Kostyuk did not shake hands with Sabalenka after their tempestuous match, prompting boos from the fans directed at Kostyuk. The World #39 emphatically accused Sabalenka of failing to speak about the war and admitted she has no respect for her.<\/p>\n<p>Sabalenka is now <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2023\/01\/28\/aryna-sabalenka-defeats-rybakina-in-australian-open-final\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">10-0 in Grand Slam matches<\/a> in 2023 and has made the second week of the clay slam for the first time.<\/p>\n<p>After her win over Rakhimova, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rolandgarros.com\/en-us\/article\/rg2023-sabalenka-rakhimova-third-round-report\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">she said<\/a>, &#8220;In the middle of the second set, I thought, &#8216;I never get through this one,&#8217; but then I was like, &#8216;Okay, Aryna, this is not something you have to be focused on.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I put away these thoughts really quickly in the match. Of course, this win gave me so much belief in myself here in Paris, so I know that on the next match, I will go there and do everything I can to win another match.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>Main Photo Credit: Susan Mullane-USA TODAY Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>World No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka skipped her post-match press conference on Friday afternoon shortly after advancing to the fourth round of the French Open. Sabalenka cited her mental health and well-being as primary drivers in taking that stance. The decision not to hold an open-air interview was unanimously given the all-clear by the tournament organizers. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2341,"featured_media":57075,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,2,5,4],"tags":[1766,204,2372],"class_list":["post-57073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","category-french-open","category-wta","tag-aryna-sabalenka","tag-french-open","tag-marta-kostyuk"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2341"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}