During a recent press conference at the Australian Open, Belarusian tennis star Victoria Azarenka was badgered by a reporter about the war in Ukraine, and the political tension brought about by allowing players from Russia and her home country to compete in the tournament.
Azarenka politely shut the reporter down, suggesting whatever answer she gave would be twisted to fit the particular narrative he wanted to push.
"There's been a lot of scrutiny about a lot of the Russian and Belarusian players here," the reporter began. "Is it difficult for you when you go out there to put all those things out of your mind and do you think there are other players who get impacted by it?"
"Other players get impacted by what exactly?" Azarenka replied, to which the reporter clarified that he meant "the constant news and talk about issues like Russia."
"News are coming from who?" she laughed. "You are talking about it here so obviously it's a topic that you want to continue to bring up and up and up again, so I don't know, what do you want me to say?"
The reporter asked once again if Azarenka was able to distance herself from the news, and she reiterated that she didn't know what sort of answer to give.
"It's continuously brought up, these incidents that in my opinion have nothing to do with players, but somehow you keep dragging players into it. So what's the goal here? I think you should ask yourself that question, not me."
Another reporter jumped in and asked Azarenka if it frustrated her to see pro-Russian demonstrations near the stadium.
"Whatever the answer I'm going to give to you right now," she sighed, "it's going to be turned whichever way you want to turn it to."
"I'm an athlete," she continued, "and you're asking me about things that maybe somebody says are in my control, but I don't believe that."
The reporters tried to keep going down that line of questioning, but were shut down by the organizer, and asked to return to the topic at hand, Azarenka's loss to Khazak competitor Elena Rybakina.
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