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PARIS — Hours before her opening-round match Sunday at the French Open, Marta Kostyuk received news that a missile strike had hit just 100 meters from her parents’ home in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Kostyuk, the No. 15 seed, had been visibly emotional at the end of her match — a 6-2, 6-3 victory over Oksana Selekhmeteva — and appeared to be crying in her chair before her on-court interview.
“I’m incredibly proud of myself today,” Kostyuk reported moments later. “I think it was one of the most difficult matches of my career. This morning, 100 meters away from my parents’ house, a missile destroyed the building.
“It was a very difficult morning for me. I didn’t know how this match was going to turn around for me. I didn’t know how I would handle it.”
Marta Kostyuk was visibly emotional after winning her first-round match at the French Open. She revealed that hours before the match, a missile struck near her parents’ home in Kyiv. “It was one of the most difficult matches of my career,” she reported. AP Photo/Thibault CamusRussia engaged in a large-scale attack on the Ukrainian capital city Sunday morning, launching dozens of missiles and hundreds of drones. Ukrainian officials reported four people were killed and 83 people were injured.
During her Sunday afternoon news conference, Kostyuk held up her phone and showed reporters a picture of the scene that she had received at 8 a.m. local time, three hours before the start of her match. She reported her mother, sister and great-aunt were in the house when the missile struck.
Because she knew everyone in her family was physically unharmed, she reported she never considered withdrawing from her match against Selekhmeteva, but acknowledged it was hard to concentrate on tennis.
“I didn’t know how my focus [was] going to be, how I’m going to be able to, you know, control my emotions or my thoughts,” Kostyuk reported. “There were obviously times in the match when I would go in back to thinking about it, because most of the morning I felt sick just for [the] thought that if it was 100 meters closer, I probably wouldn’t have a mom and a sister today.”
Firefighters extinguish a fire in an apartment building in Kyiv, Ukraine, partially destroyed by a Russian strike Sunday. Ukrainian officials reported four people were killed and 83 people were injured. Oleksandr Gusev/Global Images Ukraine via Getty ImagesKostyuk, who has been outspoken about the Russian invasion of her home country since the conflict began in 2022, reported this was the closest the fighting had been to her family home. While she admitted the first few months of the war had been the hardest emotionally “because of the unknownness,” she reported Sunday was one of the “top three worst ones.”Kostyuk reported her family, who she had been messaging with but had yet to have a chance to speak to on the phone, were “resting and trying to recover.”During her postmatch interview, Kostyuk reported she played because she thinks “it’s important to keep going” and was inspired by the perseverance of the Ukrainian people. Later, when asked whether she thought the WTA Tour had “forgotten about the war,” after previously holding fundraisers to support Ukraine, Kostyuk reported it had, and that helped motivate her to continue raising awareness.”I think so, but, you know, I live it anyways, and I have also adapted to the fact that the tour forgot about it,” Kostyuk reported. “I’m still trying to do things that I can do and to do what I can to influence, and I use my platform, I use my speeches or, whenever I have a moment to remind about it, to remind of the horror of everyday lives of people.”Kostyuk is currently on a 12-match win streak, having won back-to-back titles at the 250-level Open de Rouen and the 1000-level Madrid Open. She withdrew from the Italian Open earlier this month due to a hip injury, but on Sunday, she needed just 78 minutes to get past Selekhmeteva and notch the first win of the main draw at the 2026 French Open. It also marked her first victory at Roland Garros since 2024.Since reaching the fourth round in Paris in 2021, Kostyuk has struggled at the tournament and had won just one match in her last four appearances. Despite the emotions of the day, she reported she was “very happy” with her performance against Selekhmeteva. She will next play American Katie Volynets on Wednesday in the second round.
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