U.S. Open Tennis Stars Help Raise $1.2 Million For Ukraine Crisis

Tennis stars at the U.S. Open have been raising a racket for Ukraine in more ways than one. On Wednesday night, as part of the “Tennis Plays for Peace” event in New York City, they served further notice that the tennis world has been paying attention to the horrendous humanitarian crisis that has resulted from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And in the process, the United States Tennis Association (USTA) and its partners have already helped string together over $1.2 million for relief efforts in Ukraine. At the same time, they and the tennis stars who participated in the event such as Rafael Nadal, Iga Swiatek, Coco Gauff, John McEnroe, Dayana Yastremska, and Sergiy Stakhovsky have brought more needed attention to what’s been happening in Ukraine. It was the latest volley in what’s been a tennis world rally for Ukraine ever since the Russian military first tried to smash through the country in late February.

It may be hard to imagine that such a brutal invasion by Russia has not gotten enough attention. After all, in a little over six months, it has left over 5,587 Ukrainian civilians and 9,000 Ukrainian troops dead, 6.6 million people as refugees, and $113.5 billion in damages to the country, according to Alan Yuhas writing for the New York Times. There have also been continued reports of Russian troops committing atrocities such as murder, torture, looting, and rape. The Russian military has also shelled kindergartens and orphanages, not exactly military targets unless you somehow consider tots, toys, and nap time to be major threats. These all have been consistent with what Stakhovsky, a Ukrainian professional tennis player who achieved world rankings of number 31 in singles in 2010 and number 33 in doubles in 2011, described right before he headed back to Ukraine on Thursday, a day after the Tennis Plays for Peace event: “Russian troops seem to be more intent on destroying Ukraine and not simply occupying it.” Clearly, when one country tries to do such things to another country, especially a much smaller one, the situation deserves lots of attention.

Yet, these days attention spans can last about as long as the time it takes for someone to change clothes on a TikTok video. Sure, there was an initial surge in news coverage soon after Russian President Vladimir Putin had announced the launch of a “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24, which was kind of like calling a missile or a pizza with grenades on it a “special delivery.” Since then, though, the frequency and prominence of news from Ukraine has gradually faded as many people have turned their focus more to the news du jour such as which U.S. politicians are talking about themselves in what way or which reality TV is wearing what. Stakhovsky mentioned how, “Media coverage of the crisis in Ukraine has lessened in intensity even though the war has continued.” He emphasized how, “Ukraine is not asking others to fight the war for them. Ukraine is fighting and will definitely fight till the end.” He added, “But the odds are not on our side. It is helpful to get support to level the field a bit.” With the Ukrainian people having put up an inspiring amount of resistance to date, it can be easy to forget how Russia outguns Ukraine.

Once Russia commenced the invasion, it didn’t take too long for the tennis world to bounce into action. U.S. Open Tournament Director Stacey Allaster described how the “T7,” which consists of the four tennis Grand Slam tournament organizations, the International Tennis Federation (ITF), the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), and the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), “immediately came together to donate $100K to the charity Global Giving.” In April, the USTA and its partners raised around $250,000 for relief efforts at the Billie Jean King Cup Qualifier in Asheville, N.C., where the U.S. happened to be playing against Ukraine. As Allaster related, “we wanted to make Ukrainian players welcome and at home. So we deliberately changed that to a ‘USA hosts Ukraine’ event,” rather than a U.S. versus Ukraine competition. Naturally, you’d feel more welcome at a party or any event that doesn’t include your name preceded by the word “versus” in the title. Allaster added that “The USTA staff helped the Ukrainian team including dressing in Ukraine colors,” which if you haven’t seen them yet are a striking blue and yellow.

The success of that weekend in April prompted the USTA to lob out additional ideas such as making the U.S. Open, “a platform to remind the world that the war is still going on,” in Allaster’s words. That could potentially be a ginormous or enormagantic platform, as the U.S. Open with all its players from so many different countries arguably has a bigger global reach than any other annual sporting event. Indeed, the U.S. Open proved to be quite open to support Ukrainian relief efforts.

Now all the the USTA and its partners had to do was piece together the Tennis Plays for Peace event that would occur in the “U.S. Open Fans Week” prior to the opening of the U.S. Open’s main draw. Coincidentally, Ukrainian Independence Day fell in the middle of that week. It’s fitting to hold the event that day because independence is exactly what Russia’s opposite-of-peace invasion has been trying to reverse.

Getting players to play for peace turned out to be a piece of cake, so to speak. “It was one of the easiest asks for players,” said Allaster. “Many offered a quick ‘yes,’ saying that they would be honored to participate. In fact, we had too many players want to participate.” That left many options to fill the two hour tennis exhibition, which kicked off with twelve-year-old Ustyn Chornyy from the Ukrainian Chorus Dumka of New York singing the Ukrainian national anthem.

The first exhibition match featured 2022 French Open champions Nadal and Swiatek pairing up against Gauff and McEnroe to see who could take a mixed doubles tie-breaker. During the match, Swiatek and Nadal threw in some nifty trick shots, including a behind-the-back, between the legs volley and a back-to-the-net between the legs running recovery of a lob:

Meanwhile, McEnroe threw his racket several times. But McEnroe could not have been serious whenever he did so since this was a fun exhibition for a good cause.

After the match, Swiatek said, “I want to use every opportunity to show people that we all can be united and can all do something to help things in Ukraine.”

All in all, the total of five doubles tiebreaker matches featured a total of what the USTA described as 21 current and former tennis players. Although since you can play tennis pretty much at any age that you can hold a racket, the former professional tennis players really are still current tennis players. The lineup included current Ukrainian pros Yastremska, Katarina Zavatska and Daria Snigur as well as former pros Stakhovsky and Olga Savchuk, who is now the Ukrainian Billie Jean King Cup team captain. The over 6,000 often vocal fans in attendance were also able to watch Carlos Alcaraz, Leylah Fernandez, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Jessica Pegula, Matteo Berrettini, Maria Sakkari, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Frances Tiafoe, Taylor Fritz, Tommy Paul, Sebastian Korda, and Ben Shelton hit the court. Speaking of abundance, here’s a video of Paul using a racket far too big for him and pretty much anyone under twenty feet tall:

Talk about raising a big racket for Ukraine. Also in attendance in abundance were the colors blue and yellow on the court and throughout the stands in Louis Armstrong Stadium.

All of the proceeds raised by the event are going to GlobalGiving’s Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund, the official charity of the Tennis Plays for Peace initiative. These in turn will go to “approximately 20 local NGOs [non-governmental organizations] that are working on the ground in Ukraine,” according to Allaster. Examples of projects supported by the fund include Emergency Aid and Medical Care for Ukraine Refugees by Peace Winds Korea, Helping Children with Cancer by Tabletochki Charity Foundation, Support Children’s Hospitals by Charitable Organization Bright Kids Charity, and Support Children and Families in Ukraine by UNICEF USA. The USTA’s and their partners’ goal is to raise at least $2 million by the end of the U.S. Open.

Hitting the $1.2 million mark made Wednesday’s exhibition a “smashing” success. The next service will be other efforts throughout the duration of the U.S. Open to raise both awareness and aid for Ukraine. For example, a performance from the Ukrainian Chorus Dumka of New York will be part of the U.S. Open’s Opening Night ceremonies tonight.

Stakhovsky mentioned other things that the tennis community has been doing for Ukraine. “The amount of personal messages have been through the roof from both the ATP and WTA. People really went the distance.” He added how various “Clubs and academies took Ukrainian kids” and also pointed out how fellow tennis players have helped raise funds for the Elinea Svotlina Foundation, which was founded by Svotlina, the Ukrainian tennis star who was the third ranked women’s single player in the world in 2019. For example, on July 23, Swiatek and some of her fellow Polish players played in a fund-raising exhibition refereed by Svotlina.

So Swiatek and others in the tennis community have continued to raise a racket or actually multiple rackets for Ukraine. Putin may have thought that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would be quick. Half a year later, the Ukrainian people and their fighting spirit are proving Putin wrong, wrong as bathroom gong. And if Putin thought that the world would no longer pay attention to Ukraine after a while, looks like the tennis world is not exactly going to simply “let” this happen.