Second racket of the world Arina Sobolenko said she faced “hate” in the locker room, but hopes tensions with Ukrainian players will subside over time.
“It was very, very hard for me, because I had never faced such hatred in the locker room. Of course, there are a lot of haters on Instagram when you lose matches, but in the locker room I never encountered this. It was very hard for me to understand that there are so many people who really hate me for no reason. I mean, I didn’t do anything.
I had some, not exactly fights, but I had some strange conversations, not with the girls, but with members of their team. It was a difficult period. I felt bad, like I did something, and still not so good in the locker room with some Ukrainian girls. But then I realized that it wasn’t my fault and I didn’t do anything wrong to them. And I’m almost sure that the rest of the Russian and Belarusian athletes did nothing to the Ukrainians.
[Конфликт] actually not with everyone, I still communicate with some Ukrainian women, but there are some girls who are very aggressive towards us. So I just stay away from them,” Sobolenko said.
In Indian Wells, Arina said that she had a conflict with the coach of Ukrainian Lesya Tsurenko Nikita Vlasov. Tsurenko was supposed to play with Sobolenko, but withdrew before the match.
