LONDON (Reuters) – Ukraine’s Lesia Tsurenko matched her best Wimbledon run as she beat seeded compatriot Anhelina Kalinina 3-6 6-4 6-3 in the second round on Wednesday.
Both players had spoken of the strain of pursuing their careers following Russia’s invasion of their country and Tsurenko wore a yellow and blue ribbon on her white top.
Kalinina, the 29th seed who described on Monday how her family home had been damaged by Russian shelling, opted not to follow suit.
Tsurenko, 33, used her extra experience to wear down her opponent and move through to the third round against Germany’s Jule Niemeier who beat second seed Anett Kontaveit.
Reaching the third round is worth 90,000 pounds ($109,000) this year and Tsurenko is donating 10% of her prize money to help her fellow Ukrainians affected by the war.
She is the last Ukrainian player left in the singles after Marta Kostyuk was knocked out on Wednesday by Zhang Shuai.
($1 = 0.8249 pounds)
(Reporting by Martyn Herman, editing by Ed Osmond)
