For three years, the United States has been a haven for tennis players from Ukraine. Then came the past two weeks. President Donald Trump and his top diplomats have been pushing Ukraine to give up some of its mineral resources, in exchange for their continued support in its war with Russia. Humanitarian assistance from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has been in jeopardy since Trump directed Elon Musk, an unelected “special government employee,” and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is named for an internet meme featuring a dog, to shut down the agency.
Days before Indian Wells and the Miami Open, the two biggest tennis tournaments of the year on American soil outside of the US Open, the fortnight of tension exploded in front of television cameras in the Oval Office. Friday, President Trump and Vice-President J.D. Vance berated Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, for a lack of gratitude for America’s support. In an extraordinary break between two allies, Trump lectured Zelensky on his weak position in negotiations and in the war. “You don’t have the cards,” Trump said. “You’re either going to make a deal, or we’re out.”
Ukraine’s tennis players will now travel to the US for the so-called “Sunshine Double” under a cloud, entering a country with a different kind of government to the one they have been visiting since Russia, with assistance from Belarus, invaded Ukraine just over three years ago.
The US has given Ukraine more aid than any other country. The Department of Defence says it has spent over $180billion on Operation Atlantic Resolve, the response to Russia’s invasion. But for Elina Svitolina, the most decorated active Ukrainian player across men’s and women’s tennis, the next month will be one of the first of 36 in which they will have to contemplate what a country truly thinks about theirs while standing on its tennis courts.
