Ukraine tennis star Marta Kostyuk has admitted her hurt at seeing Russian flags and pro-Putin demonstrations at the Australian Open.
The latter stages of the competition in Melbourne have been overshadowed by a series of incidents amid the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Russian flags had been banned by tournament officials but were seen in the stands for Novak Djokovic's quarter-final win over Andrey Rublev earlier this week.
The Serb's father then caused further controversy by posing with a Russian nationalist holding a flag with the image of President Putin and sporting a military 'Z' symbol on his chest. Kostyuk, who was the last Ukrainian in the competition, admitted: "It hurts a lot because there were specific rules that were printed out outside that you're not allowed to bring out the flags and so on.
