Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP 18:15 pm, June 05, 2023

Tennis player Aryna Sabalenka in turmoil at Roland Garros. Belarus is currently facing much criticism and boycotts because of its support in the past for the Belarusian head of state Alexander Lukashenko. A situation that pushed the player to refuse to go to press conferences at Roland-Garros.

She would like to talk only about tennis. But constantly brought back to the war in Ukraine, Aryna Sabalenka, who struggles to forget her past marks of support for the authoritarian Belarusian head of state Alexander Lukashenko, has chosen not to speak at Roland-Garros. Sovereign on the Parisian ochre, Sabalenka has not appeared in a press conference during her last two victories, and nothing seems to indicate that she reappears after her quarterfinal Tuesday on the Central against the Ukrainian Elina Svitolina. The latter should also refrain from shaking his hand, as it always does against Russians and Belarusians.

The cause of this boycott? "Wednesday (after the second round), I did not feel safe," said one of the favorites of the Major to explain this decision taken for his "own mental health" and his "well-being". In a tense exchange, a Ukrainian journalist asked the Belarusian player to justify her ties to Alexander Lukashenko, whose regime is carrying out a relentless crackdown on critical voices in her country and supporting Russia in its invasion of Ukraine. The previous round, she had to comment on the refusal to shake hands with her opponent of the day, Marta Kostyuk, another Ukrainian.

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"The president supports sport"

Sabalenka "came out of her two press conferences very touched," slips the director of the tournament Amélie Mauresmo, who, for the moment, allows him to avoid this exercise in principle mandatory. If she refuses to shake hands with all the Russian and Belarusian players, Kostyuk had been particularly offensive with Sabalenka, whom she had explained "not to respect", accusing her of not taking a clear position on the invasion of Ukraine and the war. Beyond his passport, Sabalenka is paying for his past ties to Lukashenko. From 2018, they met one-on-one. A meeting organized at the request of the player, says the state agency Belta.

In 2019, in an interview with the independent media Tut.by (closed since the 2020 anti-government protests, and two of whose leaders were recently sentenced to twelve years in prison), she paid tribute to him: "Obviously, it's good to be born in a country where the president supports sport like no one else and is ready to help in difficult times." On December 31, 2020, after a year marked by the crushing of pro-democracy protests in Belarus, Sabalenka participates in a New Year's toast with Lukashenko in Minsk, along with other pro-regime figures.

At the same time, according to the Flata agency, she signed an open letter, like 3,000 other Belarusian athletes, against the creation of a "Union of Free Sportsmen of Belarus" supporting the political opposition.

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"He can comment what he wants"

The Belarusian president regularly praises his performance. At the beginning of the year, he made a toast in his honor after his victory at the Australian Open. At the end of March, he announced that he would "talk with her" after his defeat at the WTA 1000 in Miami. An ostentatious support that becomes embarrassing for Sabalenka: "I'm pretty sure it doesn't help" to make me popular, she said in April in Stuttgart. "I don't know what to say because he can comment on my matches, he can comment what he wants," she added.

The 1.82m right-hander keeps repeating it, she has "nothing to do with politics": "If the Ukrainians hate me after her speech, what can I do about it? If they feel better hating me, I don't mind helping them that way." "I've said it many times: no Russian or Belarusian player supports the war," she said after her match against Kostyuk. "No one. How can war be sustained? Normal people don't. Why do we have to say this kind of thing loud and clear? It's obvious, like 1 + 1 = 2. If we could stop it, we would do it right away." Kostyuk, and no doubt Svitolina and the Ukrainians, are demanding more.