From BBC News · · 1m 30s
A Roland Garros towel was all that survived
A Ukrainian tennis pro came home to rubble in Odesa, and one orange towel hanging in the wreckage.
In brief
A Ukrainian tennis pro came home to rubble in Odesa, and one orange towel hanging in the wreckage. Dayana Yastremska's family flat in Odesa was destroyed by a Russian Kalibr missile, and she is asking world tennis to look at what the war does to its own players. Originally reported by BBC News.
Her family's flat is gone
Ukrainian tennis player Dayana Yastremska says a Russian aerial strike destroyed her family's apartment in the Black Sea port of Odesa.
“This is what the 'Russian world' looks like. A direct hit by a Kalibr cruise missile.”
One towel left standing
The 26-year-old posted a photo of the wreckage with a single object intact: an orange clay Roland Garros towel from the Paris Grand Slam, hanging in the ruins.
“The only thing that survived was a Roland Garros... towel”
37 injured, two missing
Odesa regional head Oleh Kiper said the Friday night missile and drone attack on Odesa and nearby Chornomorsk injured 37 people, including a baby.
A message to world tennis
Yastremska tagged the WTA and the ITF directly, turning a personal loss into a demand that the sport's governing bodies stop looking away.
“Look at these images through our eyes”
Ranked 113th, still playing
She reached the Australian Open semifinals in 2024 and sits 113th in the women's singles rankings, competing this year at the US Open while her home city was under fire.
Not the first athlete hit
Ukraine football midfielder Heorhiy Sudakov said last year that a Russian drone badly damaged his Kyiv flat while his wife and child were inside.
At a glance
Dayana Yastremska's family flat in Odesa was destroyed by a Russian Kalibr missile, and she is asking world tennis to look at what the war does to its own players.
