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A tearful Marta Kostyuk has dedicated her runner-up trophy at the San Diego Open to her family in Ukraine.
Kostyuk reached the final of the WTA 500 event after defeating Ann Li, Taylah Preston, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, and Jessica Pegula. Her opponent in the final, Katie Boulter, had beaten Lesia Tsurenko, Beatriz Haddad Maia, Donna Vekic, and Emma Navarro to reach the last hurdle in San Diego.
The final got off to the perfect start for Kostyuk, as she clinched the first set 7-5. However, Boulter improved immensely in the second set to win it 6-2. Events in the third and deciding set were similar to how they unfolded in the second, and Boulter lifted the trophy.
During the post-match finalist's speech, Kostyuk teared up as she remembered her family's woes in war-torn Ukraine.
"First of all everyone in the stands... Slava Ukraini. I don't want to make it too sad, I want to say thank you to my family back home. It's been a difficult last couple of nights for Ukraine. My family is in Ukraine right now. I don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow." (via The Tennis Letter)
The World No. 32 proceeded to dedicate her trophy to her family as she briefly summed up their role in facilitating her tennis career.
"There's no one who sacrificed more for my career than them. I want to dedicate this small trophy to them," the 21-year-old said.
Marta Kostyuk criticized the tennis fraternity for forgetting the Ukraine situation during Australian Open 2024
In January, Marta Kostyuk took a swipe at the tennis world after defeating Maria Timofeeva to reach the Australian Open quarterfinals. She opined that the tennis fraternity's outrage towards Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine had died down despite the conflict still continuing.
“Something incredible happened. Ukraine managed to not be [captured] in three days, in Kyiv as well. So it was like all a miracle. I feel it’s not a miracle any more, so why talk about it?" she said (via The Guardian).
She also expressed dismay at Russian players being allowed by tennis' governing bodies to compete in tournaments.
"I still don’t understand what all these players are doing here. Nothing really changed in my world. 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," Kostyuk said.
