INDIAN WELL, CALIF.—On Saturday morning, the flags above Stadium 4 snapped in the breeze. It was easy to recognize those of the United States and Great Britain and Japan, and most of the spectators could have picked out Serbia's and Spain's, both of which tennis fans have seen a lot of in recent years. But on this court and others here, there were dozens of flags that many Americans, including this one, could never identify. Still, it’s the thought that counts: Unlike the U.S. Open, which is draped in the Stars and Stripes from end to end, Indian Wells does its best to honor tennis’s worldwide reach and put on an internationalist face.
One flag that I couldn’t find today was Ukraine’s. As I’ve learned from following the news out of Kiev this year, it’s a starkly beautiful blue and yellow duo-chrome, split horizontally down the center (not unlike some early-1970s paintings by modern American master Brice Marden). But for Elina Svitolina, Alexandr Dolgopolov, and Sergiy Stakhovsky, the three natives of the Ukraine who played here on Saturday, the fact that their flag wasn’t flying above their courts probably didn’t bother them. They had their own jobs to get done, and those jobs had nothing to do with global politics or the deeply troubled state of their nation.
Or did they? The warm air and crystalline sky on this Southern California afternoon—“picture postcard,” was how I kept hearing the day described—made the winter’s grim events in Kiev feel many worlds away. In fact, the desert landscape made it feel like we could have been on a different planet entirely, one where a double fault at break point was the worst thing that could happen. It was easy to understand how, during past European wars, refugees and intellectuals had settled here, on the farthest side of the West. Yet it still felt like Svitolina, Dolgopolov, and Stakhovsky were making a political statement with their tennis in Indian Wells, a statement about the power of the individual, at a moment when it’s on the verge of being overrun in their country.
Svitolina was up first, against Ana Ivanovic on Stadium 4. This court has the best atmosphere on the grounds; the bleachers are intimate, but they offer an expansive view of the surroundings. Unfortunately for Svitolina, the atmosphere was all on Ivanovic’s side. The 2008 Indian Wells champ loves these courts, and the fans here love her back. Few were rooting for Svitolina, and I’m guessing fewer knew that she was Ukrainian. Yet as the first set progressed and the 19-year-old from Odessa (a city in the country’s Russian-leaning half that has been described by the Daily Beast this week as torn in two) showed that she could give as good as she got from the baseline, she earned the fans’ respect. When Svitolina lasered one forehand for a winner, a gasp came from behind me, and a “Whoa!” came from in front of me. By the middle of the first set, you could almost hear people thinking, “Hey, this girl can play!”
The two women didn’t disappoint, as Ivanovic, after many ups and downs, winners and errors, fist-pumps and leg kicks, finally prevailed in third-set tiebreaker. Svitolina is a fighter, but she’s still learning not to fight herself. She served for the match twice in the third set and was broken both times; yet throughout the day she always bounced back from adversity, until it was too late to bounce back again. Late in the match, after missing a sitter swing volley into the net, Svitolina thrashed around in anger until she finally flipped herself over and crashed to the court. Yet she got up, won the next the points to break serve, and walked to the sideline with her index finger raised above her head.