Ukrainian tennis player Dayana Yastremska returned home from the US Open only to discover that her family’s apartment in the Black Sea port city of Odesa had been destroyed by a Russian missile strike. The 26-year-old, currently ranked 113th in the world, shared the news on social media, saying a Kalibr cruise missile scored a direct hit on the building where she lives with her family.
“That’s the ‘Russian world’ for you,” she wrote, according to Spanish outlet Marca. “The only thing that survived was a towel from Roland Garros. A piece of world tennis survived — our home did not.”
Unlike several of her Ukrainian peers on the women’s tour, such as Marta Kostyuk and Elina Svitolina, who relocated abroad to Monaco after Russia’s invasion, Yastremska has chosen to keep living in Ukraine throughout the war. She had just returned from New York, where she lost in the first round of the US Open to Italy’s Lucrezia Stefanini.
Born in Odesa, Yastremska reached a career-high ranking of 21st in 2020 and made the semifinals of the 2024 Australian Open, one of the best results by a Ukrainian player in recent years. She has won three WTA singles titles and continues chasing a return to the sport’s top tier despite the war’s toll on her home country.
Read the full story at El Tiempo for more details and Yastremska’s original social media post.
Source: Video | Un misil ruso acabó con el apartamento de una figura del tenis (eltiempo.com). English version produced with AI assistance.
Image: President Of Ukraine, PDM 1.0 (via Openverse).