Sergiy Stakhovsky.Photo: SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP via Getty Images
In just two months, Ukrainian tennis star Sergiy Stakhovsky has gone from the courts at the Australian Open to patrolling thestreets of Kyivarmed.
Yet the one-time men’s world No. 31 has no regrets about joining his countrymen to fight amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, even though it meantleaving his wife and three childrenbehind in Budapest, Hungary.
Stakhovsky still says the entire experience since then has been surreal.
“Never in my life would I expect to walk the streets of Kyiv with a gun in my arm,” says Stakhovsky. “But when you see on a daily basis what the Russians are doing to civilians and innocent people and kids, the amount of anger is sometimes insane.”
Sergiy Stakhovsky on court.Guillaume Horcajuelo/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Continues the former athlete, “We have seen people shot in the back while they are trying to leavetheir homes, just because they had no more supplies left. I saw a father wholost his entire family. He was trying to come back for them — they were trying to escape.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.Presidency of Ukraine/Handout/Anadolu Agency/Getty
Tragically, like millions of his fellow countrymen and women, the Russian invasion has put all these plans on hold. Along with fellow sports stars Vitali andWladimir Klitschko, and prizefighters Vasiliy Lomachenko and Oleksandr Usyk, he now spends his days doing all he can to defeat the Russian invasion.
While he says that Kyiv itself is relatively calm at the moment compared to other regions of Ukraine, this means coming face-to-face with the harsh realities of life under invasion as a steady stream of refugees travel through the country’s capital in search of transport to the safety of the west.
“It’s really tough,” he says. “These people left their homes with nothing. They lost their houses and cars and everything they had. And at the best they are all together as a family — you know, they have nothing but at least they are all alive. At worst they have lost some of their family members and they are still going into the unknown in the west of Ukraine and then onwards to Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, England.”
“People are also coming back,” he continues. “There’s more traffic and more people in Kyiv. But this is unfortunate because it is predominantly people who left but didn’t have the financial resources to stay away for long. Once they have drained all their savings, they come back to Kyiv because it’s the only place they have. They are putting themselves in great danger.”
As for the future, Stakhovsky is assured that Ukraine will not be defeated because its people “willnever give up their freedom.”
“That’s why in every city, in every village they are fighting brave,” he tells PEOPLE.
He’s also appreciative of the support that the rest of the world has given to the Ukrainian people, which, in his case, has included kind messages from American tennis pros Andy Roddick and Mardy Fish.
His main priority, however, is to do his duty for his country and help make the people of Kyiv feel safer. After that, he will return to the only thing that’s more important: his family.
“Kyiv is my city. I was born here. My grandparents are buried here and my great-grandparents,” says Stakhovsky. “On the other hand, I have three kids and the oldest one in a week’s time is going to be eight and the youngest is going to be three. I should be there with them, and I feel guilty while being here that I left them.”
“I hope that one day I can go back to my family. That is the most important thing.”
source: people.com
