Marta Kostyuk came through \u201cone of the most difficult matches\u201d of her career in the first round of the French Open, but it was events back home in Ukraine that were playing heavily on her mind.<\/p>\n
Playing in her first match since she won back-to-back titles at the WTA 250 Open de Rouen and WTA 1000 Madrid Open<\/a>, Kostyuk kicked off her campaign at Roland Garros against Oksana Selekhmeteva on Court Simonne-Mathieu.<\/p>\n But she admitted it was a difficult morning filled with tears due to Russia\u2019s ongoing airstrikes on her home country with her parents\u2019 house not far from the latest missile strikes.<\/p>\n The 23-year-old managed to keep her emotions in check and produced an excellent display to defeat Selekhmeteva 6-2, 6-3 to take her unbeaten run to 12 matches.<\/p>\n Emma Raducanu makes \u2018unusual\u2019 coaching revelation as Tim Henman gives his verdict<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n French Open: The 9 youngest women in the main draw, featuring two 17-year-olds<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n During her post-match on-court interview, the 15th seed was nearly overcome by emotion, revealing: \u201cI\u2019m incredibly proud of myself today. I think it was one of the most difficult matches of my career.<\/p>\n \u201cThis morning, 100 metres from my parents\u2019 house, the missile destroyed the building. It was a very difficult morning. I didn\u2019t know how this match is gonna turn out for me. I didn\u2019t know how I would handle it.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been crying part of the morning. I don\u2019t wanna talk about myself today. I\u2019m very pleased to be in the second round, but all of my thoughts and all my heart goes to the people of Ukraine today. Thank you so much for coming out. Slava Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n Kostyuk was among the first winners at the 2026 clay-court Grand Slam and her second-round opponent is yet to be confirmed with Katie Volynets and Clara Burel still to take to court in Paris.<\/p>\n But with the win in the bag, it was time to celebrate the people of Ukraine.<\/p>\n Kostyuk<\/a> added: \u201cBecause I think it\u2019s important to keep going. My biggest example is the Ukrainian people. I woke up in the morning today and I looked at all these people who woke up and kept living their live, kept helping people who are in need.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew a lot of Ukrainian flags would be here today and a lot of Ukrainian people would come out and support. My friends from Ukraine came as well. Very happy to have them here. Not much I can say.\u201d<\/p>\n The post French Open: Marta Kostyuk delivers emotional speech after victory \u2013 \u2018I\u2019ve been crying\u2019<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Marta Kostyuk came through \u201cone of the most difficult matches\u201d of her career in the first round of the French Open, but it was events back home in Ukraine that were playing heavily on her mind. Playing in her first match since she won back-to-back titles at the WTA 250 Open de Rouen and WTA […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2230\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}French Open News<\/h2>\n