Elina Svitolina and other Ukrainians face 'unimaginable challenge' of return to Indian Wells amid recent fractious Trump-Zelensky stand-off

With the recent goings on surrounding the US and Ukraine, Ukrainian tennis players head back to the US in the coming weeks to play at Indian Wells and Miami perhaps with concerns about their own safety after recent meetings between Trump and Zelensky.

President Trump has been pushing Ukraine to give up some of its mineral resources in exchange to continue to support them in their war against Russia. Zelensky left without a deal and JD Vance, Vice President lectured the former on his lack of gratitude towards the US and was warned. “You don’t have the cards,” Trump said. “You’re either going to make a deal, or we’re out.”

So back to the tennis, Elina Svitolina and co will head to Indian Wells and Miami under fresh uncertainty in their minds thinking Zelensky is doing his best to make a breakthrough while also not having the government that saw the US become a safe haven in years prior for them.

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“The United States has been helping us for a long period of time now. Our government is working really hard to still find the ways, the solutions for the decisions. They’re trying everything and to maybe find other ways, other allies, or something. We are just hoping for the best.” Svitolina said to The Athletic from her home in Monaco.

“We are living with the unimaginable challenges, pressure, and just not knowing what’s coming tomorrow."

“Right now, I feel like we are united even more because we feel like the United States is not helping us much for the past few weeks.“

"So we have to unite, we have to help each other, for the country that we love. Trump just started and already made a lot of decisions that really hurt the Ukrainians. I’m just really sad for all innocent people.”

Tennis has been fractured for some time in regards to this. The top female player is a Belarusian in Aryna Sabalenka who is a growing commercial commodity also away from the sport but she cannot represent her own country.

Aryna Sabalenka is the standard bearer in women's tennis but cannot adorn her country's flag.

Mirra Andreeva and Andrey Rublev both won titles over the past week and while they can be perceived as having differing views with the latter calling for war to stop and the former being accused by Dayana Yastremska of liking Putin based content, both couldn't represent their nation either.

Daria Kasatkina lives almost in exile away from her home land after condemning the war in Ukraine and also coming out as gay. But even so still can't represent her nation. Albeit throughout this time, some have said that it has not gone far enough with Russians and Belarusians banned from Wimbledon back in 2022.

There were calls for more wide spread bans and ironically it was Elena Rybakina who claimed the title who was born in Russia but now represents Kazakhstan. Players including Martina Navratilova, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal condemned the ban. While there has been differing views on the no handshake rule. Players have been booed and there have been incidents such as Sabalenka standing at the net waiting knowing she was not going to get a handshake.

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The Russian sentiment also came back into the spotlight during the past week as Daniil Medvedev accused the umpire of being anti Russian. Andreeva took a balanced view of the argument over Rublev's no war sentiment admitting it's not her choice to have a flag to her name or not. “I would say that there is nothing I can do. It doesn’t depend on me. Whatever happens happens,” she said.

But despite the fact that this has gone on for the last three years, Svitolina returned to some of her career best form and Marta Kostyuk in particular has forged her way further into the higher echelons of the game. Ahead of Indian Wells and Miami though, a new fight is there for a group of players who are continually fighting.

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