Sitak tormented by Ukraine war ahead of Davis Cup tie

This week’s Davis Cup tie against Uruguay in Las Vegas is far from the forefront of New Zealand tennis player Artem Sitak’s mind. The Russian born doubles specialist’s wife Anya is from Ukraine and she has hardly slept since the Russian invasion of her homeland started last week.

36-year-old Sitak who will team up with Olympic bronze medallist Michael Venus for Sunday’s doubles rubber in the World Group 1 playoff, says his focus has been  on the horror in Ukraine.

“Yeah, it's been it's been on our minds for the for the last five days. It's been really crazy and my wife has barely had any sleep. She's been talking to her family back in Ukraine and worrying for them and worrying for the whole country really, because what's going on is absolutely atrocious.”

Anya hails from the Dnipro in central Ukraine and while her mum resides in Phoenix in Arizona, most of her family, aunts, her uncle, cousins and nephews live in the Khmelnitsky region in the West of Ukraine.

“They have had sirens going off in their village and there are bombs coming pretty often but at the moment they are fine. They have bomb shelters that I guess they are building in case the invading army is going to come near them. So, they're definitely prepared for full on war like the whole of Ukraine right now.” Sitak lamented.

“We are just thinking of what ways we can help and we cannot help by doing much, but whatever we can we are trying to and that's definitely been the focus for us right now mentally, even though I'm trying to focus on the fact I'm playing Davis Cup and haven't played in a while and it's going to be a great tie for us. ‘Sitak said.

The International tennis Federation has joined other sports bodies in pulling events from Russia while the joint ATP and WTA Tour’s Kremlin Cup scheduled for Moscow in October has been postponed. But the professional Tours have decided to allow individual Russian athletes like new men’s world number one Daniil Medvedev to compete at tournaments but not under the Russian flag.

Sitak being a Russian speaker is friends with a number of the Russian players and agrees with the decision by the ATP and WTA to let them compete as individuals.

Most of the Russian players have used their social media accounts to call for peace but have stopped short of any criticism directly aimed at Vladimir Putin and Sitak says there’s an obvious reason for that.

“There's a huge fear factor, everybody's afraid, everybody’s terrified.” Sitak remarked.

“They're all posted on Instagram saying no war, which is for Russian person, knowing the situation there. if somebody comes out in the street in Russian protests, they go to they go straight to jail. So, it's big for them to do that to take a stance that they're against this this war and I know all of them did that. But they are absolutely terrified of saying anything (against Putin) because they know the second, they do it, they go straight to jail or their family goes to jail.”

The sporting sanctions against Russia have been far reaching and combined with the economic sanctions Sitak hopes they can make a tangible difference.

“I think what they're doing right now, obviously, just the regular Russian population, they're getting hurt a lot for with all the sanctions. They're the ones who are going to suffer. But maybe, because of all this, they are actually going to stand up, they're going to rise up to tyranny, and maybe something will happen that way. I'm not sure if that's going to happen. But that's one of the options and I hope it will.”

Tennis is a welcome distraction to the madness of the current situation for Sitak and the opportunity to wear the silver fern again this weekend gives him an immense sense of pride. Veteran Rubin Statham is joined by Ajeet Rai for the singles rubbers with Sitak teaming up with Michael Venus for the doubles.

“Everybody’s playing well and everybody's practicing really well. Mike just came in last night because he won Dubai at the weekend which is amazing. It’s going to be a very tough doubles match because they (Uruguay) have Pablo Cuevas (former top 30 singles player) and Ariel Behar (top 50 in doubles). Usually, we are heavy favourites in doubles but this time it’s going to be tough. “

Cuevas who has beaten Rafael Nadal in singles will be favourite to win both his singles rubbers with New Zealand pinning their hopes on the doubles and the number two singles with Uruguay’s number two Martin Cuevas ranked 440 in the world.

“I like our chances, we’re not the favourites but I definitely like our chances.” Sitak said.

The tie gets underway on Saturday morning NZT with the winner advancing to the World Group 1 ties in September and the loser dropping to World Group 2.

Republished from the NZ Herald