“Well, in my opinion, you are right to let Hitler’s supporters in,” Oleksandra Oliynykova, a 25-year-old Ukrainian tennis player, said. he announced before the start of this year’s Australian Open. “The Russians are hell – that’s my clear position.”
With these words, Oliynykova, who is ranked 71st in the world and was playing in her first Australian Open, touched on what had been in the public eye for a long time: the worst feud between Ukrainian tennis players and their counterparts from Russia and Belarus who are closely aligned with their countries’ hostile governments. Ukrainian women in particular—like former No. 3 Elina Svitolina, top players like Marta Kostyuk and Dayana Yastremska, and now Oliynykova—are pushing the tennis world to take a tougher stance on the brutal four-year war that has ravaged their country.
“Well, in my opinion, you are right to let Hitler’s supporters in,” Oleksandra Oliynykova, a 25-year-old Ukrainian tennis player, said. he announced before the start of this year’s Australian Open. “The Russians are hell – that’s my clear position.”
With these words, Oliynykova, who is ranked 71st in the world and was playing in her first Australian Open, touched on what had been in the public eye for a long time: the worst feud between Ukrainian tennis players and their counterparts from Russia and Belarus who are closely aligned with their countries’ hostile governments. Ukrainian women in particular—like former No. 3 Elina Svitolina, top players like Marta Kostyuk and Dayana Yastremska, and now Oliynykova—are pushing the tennis world to take a tougher stance on the brutal four-year war that has ravaged their country.
Russia’s attack on Ukraine ripped the court right after the full-scale invasion began in 2022. Ukrainians stopped shaking hands with Russian and Belarusian players after the match (Russian troops invaded northern Ukraine from Belarus. Belarusian vendors did not participate – at least not under the Belarusian flag – but the authoritarian government of Belarus is a close ally of Russia).
That year, the Wimbledon Championships banned all players from Russia and Belarus who refused to openly condemn their governments, to justify actions like “not allowing the game to be used to promote the Russian government.” It noted how Russia and Belarus routinely exploit their most decorated athletes to defend their leadership and legitimize the government. “Why, however, should it be allowed to boast of its sporting achievements when thousands of innocent people have been slaughtered and millions have fled?” he commented Guardian in support.
The ban on Wimbledon tore the tennis world apart: Nordic and Central European players such as Iga Swiatek (Poland) and Petra Kvitova (Czech Republic) approved, while dozens of others opposed, including the three biggest tennis associations, which sanctioned the Wimbledon event. Soon after, however, the big three teams passed their own bans on players representing Russia and Belarus, emphasizing the flag they play under, not their nationality, and without needing to criticize the war. (The federations, however, warned players not to take it too far and emphasized a ban against bringing politics on the court or in post-match press conferences.)
In response to the punishment, many Russian and Belarusian players changed nationalities—mostly to Central Asian countries but also Australia, Austria, and France, among others—or did not play without a flag at all, such as Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka, ranked No. 1 in women’s singles, and Russian Daniil Medvedev, who is ranked No. 11 in men’s singles.
Moscow-born Elena Rybakina—the 2026 Australian Open champion who beat Sabalenka—moved from Russia to Kazakhstan in 2018, not out of politics but because of Russia’s reluctance to support her as a young, modestly acclaimed athlete. Rybakina lives in Dubai but proudly flaunts her Kazakh citizenship. However, she did not give up her Russian passport as others did, such as Daria Kasatkina, who left Russia in 2025 to become an Australian citizen so she could live openly as a gay person. Kasatkina is one of the few Russian-born players who publicly chastised Russian President Vladimir Putin and called the war in Ukraine “a complete nightmare.”
But many of these nationalistic changes—and implicit calls for peace—occurred when the war was still in its infancy. The 2026 Australian Open was held just weeks before the war passed the four-year mark, longer than the First World War, and occurred during Russia’s unprecedented attack on Ukrainian civilians, leaving many without heat or power in sub-zero weather. The war is estimated to cost the lives of more than 1.8 million people.
In Oliynykova’s breadth, Ukrainian players were confused by the world of professional tennis. Oliynykova, after losing in the first round, appeared at her post-match press conference wearing a T-shirt that read: “I need your help to protect the women and children of Ukraine, but I can’t talk about it here.” The message was directed at the tennis world’s fears about going further than the 2022 ban, which seems inadequate considering the major events on the ground.
The outspoken Oliynykova, who showed body tattoos on her neck and arms, face jewelry, and flowers painted on her cheeks, told reporters that if they wanted to talk to her about the fight, then they’d have to do it outside the Australian Open—those being (silly) rules, she seemed to imply. The night before he left Kyiv, his hometown, for Australia, a Russian missile landed so close to his family home that it shook the bed beneath him. “I know how people can help protect the citizens of Ukraine, protect them from these drones, but we will need to speak out about this,” he said.
Oliynykova he lamented that his father, his main supporter, could not be in his Australian debut because, as a member of the 412th Ukrainian Air Force, he was defending the country. “His fighting force is working every day to prevent Russian attacks and protect Ukrainian cities and villages,” he said. A website he created many people’s donations for his father’s unit. The site “is how I connect my world of tennis to his front-line reality. Together with friends and supporters, we’re raising money for mission-critical equipment that helps his unit see more, react faster, and come home alive.”
Outside the Australian Open, Oliynykova spoke directly about politics. Tennis associations, he explained, say, “Everything is good, we are ‘apolitical’ here, we are here to play tennis.” But in this way, he continued, “they are allowing real supporters of Putin, people who support genocide, who support war, who are absolutely horrible, who are turning what (the Women’s Tennis Association) allows them to earn to kill the peaceful population of Ukraine. They are changing their advertising to help spread Putin’s propaganda.”
As for the Russian and Belarusian players themselves, Oliynykova said that those who protest too gently – or worse, carry water for criminals – should be automatically removed. Ukrainian players not only refuse to shake hands on the court, but it seems the air in the locker rooms, too, can be cut with a knife. Ukrainians want the professional tennis world to require all players to sign a written declaration condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a condition of participation and any form of advanced sponsorship. At the 2026 Winter Olympics, Russians and Belarusians will compete under the same conditions as they did at the 2024 Paris Olympics—as neutrals without their country’s flag, emblem or anthem.
Oliynykova and her colleagues do not throw all Russians and Belarusians into the same pot. They exclude Sabalenka, who has won four Grand Slam titles and set a record 15 million dollars in 2025. The 27-year-old, who was born in Minsk, Belarus, and now lives in Miami, has a relationship with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko that goes back a decade, not least because the Belarusian government supported her work from day one. He is regularly brought up by Lukashenko, a dictator who has been in power longer than Putin, for propaganda purposes. In 2020, during massive national protests against rigged presidential elections, Sabalenka signed a letter that avoided any criticism of Lukashenko. In 2021, after the severe suppression of these protests in Belarus, he was a guest at Lukashenko’s New Year’s address. In 2023, journalists pressed Sabalenka on whether she supported Lukashenko, to which she replied, “It’s a difficult question. I mean, I don’t support the war, I mean I don’t support Lukashenko right now.” This is as far as he will ever go.
Diana Shnaider, a 21-year-old player who took Austrian citizenship in 2025, and Mirra Andreeva, 18, have been called to accept Putin’s honor after the pair won a silver medal in the women’s doubles event at the 2024 Paris Olympics – even though they competed under a neutral flag. Last November, Shnaider and Medvedev was played at a tennis event in St. Even the fact that athletes compete without flags on international tennis courts does not prevent Putin and Lukashenko from using them for their own purposes.
Russian and Belarusian players complain that only they are forced to take political positions against their countries while other citizens are not forced to. Asked at the Australian Open about US President Donald Trump’s second term, American player Amanda Anisimova replied, “I don’t think that matters.”
