Marta Kostyuk, who is currently playing at the French Open, revealed that her family home in Ukraine has been hit by a missile. The World No. 15 fought back tears after her first-round win at Roland Garros and said that a missile “destroyed” a building just 100 meters from their house in Kyiv.
Despite the emotional toll, Kostyuk beat Russian-born Oksana Selekhmeteva, now representing Spain, 6-2, 6-3 on Sunday. But after the match, Kostyuk admitted tennis had felt secondary as thoughts of her mother and sister consumed her mind throughout the morning.
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“Well, I have this picture of my parents’ house and everything around it. I don’t have a video, but yeah, this is what I received at eight in the morning today,” Kostyuk told reporters while showing a photograph on her phone that captured smoke and flames engulfing the neighborhood.
The 23-year-old said she struggled to steady herself mentally before stepping on court.
“I had to, yeah, I had to live through it and deal with it and go out and play. I didn’t know what to expect from myself. I didn’t know how my focus is going to be, how I’m going to be able to, you know, control my emotions or my thoughts,” she said.
At several moments during the contest, Kostyuk found herself drifting back to the terrifying possibility of what could have happened had the strike landed slightly closer.
“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 my thought that see if it was 100 meters closer, I probably wouldn’t have a mum and a sister today,” she said.
Kostyuk later revealed that her great-aunt – her grandmother’s sister – had also been inside the house with her mother and sister when the attack was carried out. None of them were injured or hospitalised.
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia launched 90 missiles and 600 drones overnight. Air defense systems intercepted or shot down 604 of the incoming weapons. Authorities confirmed that four people were killed in Kyiv and nearby regions, while dozens suffered injuries.
Kostyuk, however, refused to pull out of the French Open even amid the shock.
“Not this morning, because obviously everyone is healthy, alive, out of the hospital, never was in the hospital,” she explained.
“So these things, you know, it’s difficult, but none of my close friends or people I know is injured or dead.”
Kostyuk said she had only exchanged text messages with her family after the attack, adding that many residents across Kyiv were still trying to recover from a night that stretched over four relentless hours of strikes.
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“Obviously very scary, but, you know, it’s not the first very difficult night, not the last, so, you know, they are adapting,” she said.
The Ukrainian also reflected on how the latest attack compared to the darkest moments since the war began four years ago.
“Well, I think the beginning of full-scale war was probably the most difficult because of unknownness,” Kostyuk said. “We had 17 people in the house. It was just, yeah, it’s just the unknown is the first, I think, couple of months was really difficult.”
