Ukrainian star Lesia Tsurenko shares horrific details of personal trauma after Australian Open loss

Ukrainian tennis star Lesia Tsurenko has delivered a pointed message to trolls after her loss to defending Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka on Friday.

Tsurenko, the 28th seed, failed to win a game in the 52-minute nightmare as Sabalenka produced a merciless 6-0 6-0 win.

The pair didn’t shake hands after the match with Tsurenko keeping her promise of refusing to shake hands with Belarusian players due to their involvement in Russia’s ongoing war with Ukraine.

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While dealing with a double bagel loss would be hard for any player, Tsurenko revealed that it actually “made a lot of people happy”.

In a deeply personal statement on social media that began with “real life is not about tennis court”, Tsurenko also shared horrific details of a close friend who had just been released after 18 months in captivity.

“I noticed that my loss yesterday made a lot of people happy. So my new post is for you,” she began. “Please feel free to express whatever you want to me. I hope this will make you happy for a little bit longer.

“But you know, on the eve of the new year, my friend returned from Russian captivity after 1.5 years. Lost 55 kilograms of body weight and with an infection in his legs, but the main thing is that he is alive.

“This is real happiness. So I hope that you will also have real reasons to feel happy in your (life), and not because of the loss of some random tennis player whom you have never even met in your life.”

Tsurenko and compatriot Marta Kostyuk, who is through to the fourth round, both spoke about the lack of discussion on the war — which is about to enter its third year — after their respective matches

“People don’t want to talk about war. They don’t want to hear bad news,” Tsurenko said.

“I am trying to remind the world that the war is still on and people are still struggling.

“It seems like the whole world is tired of hearing that. It is still going on and it’s a part of my life and other Ukrainians’ lives and we have to talk about it, we have to remind people about Ukraine and, of course, about all the other wars that are going on around the world and how unfair it is.”

Kostyuk will play Russian Maria Timofeeva in the fourth round after defeating another Russian in Elina Avanesyan on Friday.

Kostyuk took aim at the media when asked if the sport had lost interest in the ongoing battle in Ukraine.

“Unfortunately, yes. I respect journalists, but there are some that I really don’t like,” she said.

“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.

“The war is still there. People are still dying every day. 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.

“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. It’s not normal that it’s happening.”

Russian and Belarusian players are competing under a neutral flag at this year’s Open.