Only Roland Garros towel left, says Ukraine tennis player after Russian strike hits flat

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Ukrainian tennis player Dayana Yastremska has revealed that her family's flat in Odesa was destroyed after Russia launched a missile and drone attack on the Black Sea port on Friday night, with only a towel from the Roland Garros tournament left intact amid the wreckage. The 26-year-old, who reached the semi-final of the Australian Open in 2024, shared images on social media of a residential tower block engulfed in flames, describing the damage to her family's home as the result of a direct hit from a Russian Kalibr cruise missile.

Accounts of the human toll from the strike vary slightly between reports. One account, attributing the figures to Odesa's regional governor Oleh Kiper, said 37 people were hurt, among them an infant, with two others unaccounted for following the combined missile and drone assault on Odesa and the neighbouring town of Chornomorsk. Another report instead stated that two people had been killed in the attack, alongside 37 injured including a baby, without reference to anyone still missing. Yastremska's own flat was said to be on the 22nd floor of the building that was hit.

In an emotional post shared on Instagram, Yastremska said the destruction demonstrated what she called the true nature of the 'Russian world', and noted the strange coincidence that an orange clay-court towel from last year's Roland Garros tournament had survived hanging amid the rubble while the rest of the family home had not. One report also noted that a child's toy was pictured among the debris. She addressed the sport's governing bodies, the Women's Tennis Association and the International Tennis Federation, directly in her post, urging them to view the images from a Ukrainian perspective and suggesting that their stance of neutrality looked very different from the Ukrainian side of the situation.

The incident adds to a pattern of Ukrainian sportspeople having their homes targeted during the war, with one report drawing a parallel to footballer Heorhiy Sudakov, whose Kyiv flat was badly damaged by a Russian drone last year while his wife and child were inside. Coverage also referenced Yastremska's grandmother, whose home was reportedly damaged in a separate attack on New Year's Eve 2024, and recalled the player's previous description of Russia as a 'terrorist country' along with her longstanding refusal to shake hands with Russian and Belarusian opponents. Yastremska, now ranked 113th in the world, had recently competed at the US Open in New York, where she was eliminated in the first round.

• www.bbc.co.uk
• www.dailymail.com