MEXICO CITY (appro).– “Of course I’m afraid! I have three children,” commented former tennis player Sergiy Stakhovsky, after joining the territorial brigades that will fight the Russian military to defend the city of kyiv, in Ukraine.
The 36-year-old former tennis player, who in 2013 defeated Roger Federer and was ranked number 1 in the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) for 310 weeks, of which 237 were consecutive, watches Maidan Square, in the center of kyiv, dressed in camouflage clothing and a Kalashnikov rifle.
“I’m not very comfortable with a rifle and I don’t know how I would react if I had to kill someone. I would have liked never to have to worry about this kind of thing,” the 1.93-meter-tall former athlete confessed to the AFP news agency.
He enlisted in the territorial brigades two weeks ago. He is one of the volunteers in charge of helping the Ukrainian Army to stop the Russian invasion that began on February 24.
“He knew he had to come” when he learned that the Russians were closing in on kyiv. “The Ukrainians are holding up well,” she said.
The day before the invasion, Sergiy Stakhovsky, who retired from tennis in January after the Australian Open, was in Dubai on vacation with his wife and three children aged 4, 6 and 8.
When he learned of the invasion, he was filled with uncertainty, lost his appetite and, since much of his family lives in the Ukraine, he announced to his wife that he was going to enlist and she understood that there was nothing else she could do.
“Leaving my children is not something that makes me proud. They do not know that I am here because I want them to be away from all this, but I have told them that I will be back soon and it has been 15 days since that. God only knows how many more days there will be,” he noted.
Like all Ukrainians between the ages of 18 and 60, Stakhovsky cannot move or leave the country while it is at war on the orders of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The former tennis player said that “he has seen thousands sign up” because they have no choice. “If we don’t resist, we will no longer have a country to live in,” he said.
He celebrated that Federer told him that he wanted peace to return soon to Ukraine and that with his foundation he was looking for a way to help Ukrainian children.
World number 4 and Roland Garros finalist Andrei Medvedev and former tennis player Aleksandr Dolgopolov Jr, champion of the Argentina Open, have also enlisted in the Ukrainian Army.
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