A loyal Ukrainian tennis player

[Anotherkiwi]

The new international tennis season is underway, and Auckland is hosting one of the women's tournaments in week 1.  It was very nice to find a young woman from Kyiv on the sideline with a Ukrainian flag, and especially to see Kateryna Bondarenko (born in Krivoy Rog, living in Kyiv) wearing a lovely yellow dress with light blue trim (although the latter colour doesn't really show up in the photos).  Her doubles partner, Olga Savchuk (born in Donetsk, living in Nassau, Bahamas) was in a pale lemon-coloured dress.  Unfortunately they lost in a super tie-break to Germans Julia Goerges and Anna-Lena Groenefeld.

Today another Ukrainian, Yuliya Beygelzimer (born in Donetsk, and still living there) will take the court - I don't like her chances, as she and her partner Eva Hrdinova take on the World No 1 doubles pair of Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci.

[Anotherkiwi]

Today another Ukrainian, Yuliya Beygelzimer (born in Donetsk, and still living there) will take the court - I don't like her chances, as she and her partner Eva Hrdinova take on the World No 1 doubles pair of Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci.

I nearly had to eat those words, as Beygelzimer and Hrdinova romped through the first set.  Errani and Vinci fought back well to win the second set, and then raced away with the super tie-break to win 10-1.  No real Ukraine colours to speak of, though (just a very light blue top), and I wasn't going to ask her political views after she'd just been beaten!