Ukraine conflict: Vasiliy Lomachenko & Sergiy Stakhovsky sign up to fight Russia

Ukrainian tennis player Sergiy Stakhovsky says he hopes he will not have to use the gun he has been given after signing up to help his nation's defence against the Russian invasion.

Boxer Vasiliy Lomachenko, a three-weight champion, is another sports star to join Ukraine's reserve forces and has been photographed with a rifle.

Heavyweight boxing champion Oleksandr Usyk is also thought to have signed up.

Stakhovsky said: «I know how to use the gun. If I'll have to, I'll have to.»

The 36-year-old retired from tennis after the Australian Open in January and has returned to Kyiv to help his nation's defence.

Reigning heavyweight champion Usyk, who beat Britain's Anthony Joshua in September, has left his London base to go back to Ukraine.

Photographs on Instagram — from an unverified Ukraine Boxing Federation account — claim to show the 35-year-old holding a weapon.

Lomachenko, 34, was shown wearing military uniform with a rifle across his shoulder in a post on his Facebook page.

Men between the ages of 18 and 60 have been told by the Ukrainian government to stay in the country and fight as it looks to slow Russia's attacks.

«I pretty much hope that I won't have to use the gun,» Stakhovsky, a former world number 31 known for beating Roger Federer at Wimbledon in 2013, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Stakhovsky has left his wife Anfisa and children at their home, saying it was a «horrible» decision to make.

He thinks Anfisa has told their children he has gone to another tennis tournament.

«I'm still not sure how I've done it. I know that it's extremely hard on my wife. My kids don't know that I'm here,» he said.

«They don't understand war. They're too little to understand what's going on.»

Sporting organisations are continuing to