Ukrainian tennis player Dayana Yastremska said her family’s flat in the Black Sea port of Odesa was hit by a direct strike from a Russian Kalibr cruise missile. The athlete shared a photo of a burning multi‑storey block on social media, noting that the only item that survived was an orange Roland Garros towel from the Paris Grand Slam, which she hung from the wreckage.
Odesa regional governor Oleh Kiper confirmed that the missile and drone attack on Friday night injured 37 people, including a baby, and left two residents missing in Odesa and the nearby town of Chornomorsk. Yastremska, 26, wrote on Instagram that the attack symbolised the “Russian world”, and tagged the Women’s Tennis Association and the International Tennis Federation in a plea for attention to the situation.
The incident adds to a growing list of Ukrainian athletes whose homes have been damaged since the full‑scale invasion began in 2022. Football midfielder Heorhiy Sudakov reported severe damage to his Kyiv flat after a Russian drone strike last year. Yastremska, who reached the Australian Open semi‑finals in 2024 and is currently 113th in the world rankings, had competed at the US Open in New York before losing in the first round.
Category: International
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