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Ukrainian Alexander Dolgopolov was once the 13th best tennis player in the world. His resume is also decorated with a win against tennis superstar Rafael Nadal, but in almost two years the Ukrainian’s life has changed 180 degrees. Currently, 35-year-old Dolgopolov is a soldier in the Ukrainian army, and as the tennis player emphasized in an interview with the BBC: “The West needs to wake up and understand that this is not just a Ukrainian problem.”
In 2011, Dolgopolov reached the quarterfinals of the Australian Open, but in March 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, he applied for army training, and today he is one of thousands who fight every day for Ukraine’s freedom and hope for tomorrow . Although sometimes an athlete dreams of tennis, the days of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) tour currently seem like a distant dream. Dolgopolov played his last professional game in 2018, but officially ended his career three years later due to a recurring wrist injury. “The last year on the battlefield was tough,” Dolgopolov admitted to the BBC.
Russian athletes should not be allowed to play
“When they get closer and start shooting, you know they know roughly where you are. You can hear the bullets as they go off and then they fly for a few seconds and it’s like a loud whistle as you get closer until you feel the impact. At that moment you hope the impact isn’t all the way over the ditch. If it is a meter or more away from you, everything is fine because you are half a meter or a meter underground. If he doesn’t hit the top of the ditch, everything should be fine, but you can never be sure if you know,” the former tennis player shares his experiences.
Dolgopolov is currently in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, awaiting further instructions from the Ukrainian Intelligence Directorate.
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