Sabalenka reaches French Open semis and says she does not back Lukashenko

Aryna Sabalenka has said that she does not support the Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko, as she returned to conduct her mandatory press duties following her French Open quarter-final win against Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina.

Sabalenka, the second seed, defeated Svitolina 6-4, 6-4 to reach the French Open semi-finals for the first time. Sabalenka had skipped her previous two press conferences following tense exchanges with a Ukrainian journalist, who aggressively questioned her stance on the war and her links with Lukashenko.

Upon her return, Sabalenka addressed a significantly bigger audience than any other player during the tournament and she fielded more political questions than ever before. Sabalenka was directly asked if she supported Lukashenko, prompting her to distance herself from the dictator for the first time. Sabalenka attended Lukashenko’s New Year address in 2021, shortly after his violent repression of mass protests in Belarus. “It’s a tough question. I mean, I don’t support war, meaning I don’t support Lukashenko right now,” she said.

Sabalenka said she had stepped away from her media duties after feeling disrespected and has had difficulty sleeping since. “I don’t regret the decisions,” the 25-year-old said. “I felt really disrespected, and I felt really bad. I mean, grand slam, it’s enough pressure to handle, and I just tried to focus on myself, on my game.”

Additionally, she repeated that she is against Russia’s war in Ukraine and stated her reasons for arguing that sport is separate from politics. “The thing that I don’t want sport to be involved in politics, because I’m just a 25-years-old tennis player. And if I would like to be political I wouldn’t be here. I don’t want to be involved in any