"They want drama, they wanted all this heating between players": Marta Kostyuk slams journalists for shunning Russia-Ukraine war plight

Marta Kostyuk found her way through to the fourth round of the 2024 Australian Open after taking down Russian ace Elina Avanesyan on Friday morning 2-6, 6-4, 6-4, but took the opportunity instead of highlighting her win to slam journalists for no longer covering the Ukraine-Russia war.

Kostyuk who has been one of the most vocal players alongside Elina Svitolina and Lesia Tsurenko surrounding the banning of Russian players and highlighting the plight suffered by Ukrainians has also received booing like her compatriots for refusing to shake hands with Russian tennis players. But it seems for the 21-year-old, it is also a question of the media also not doing enough with their message and in the view of Kostyuk searching for drama and for aggro between tennis players as opposed to highlighting that there is still a war taking place.

"I respect journalists, but there are some that I really don't like. I think it was a way of not really lightening up the situation in Ukraine, but rather it being like breaking news all the time. So they want the drama. They wanted news. They wanted all this heating between players and everything," she told the press.
"People are still dying every day. I still don't understand what all these players are doing here. I feel like in general it's a lot of processes happening to come to this point where people forget about it because, yeah, people get used to it. Yeah, unfortunately it's not breaking news anymore, so journalists are not interested in it."

"I understand that everyone has their own issues, and everyone is focused on their thing. I think I'm here to remind everyone all the time that it's still on, and it should be stopped," she continued.