EHe Ukrainian Leonid Stanislavskyi, 97, turned just a few months ago his dream of training with Rafa Nadal, winner of 21 Grand Slams. Now, just a few weeks after that, this tennis player, the oldest in the world, thinks about surviving.
The Ukrainian lives his worst nightmare these days in Kharkiv while Russian forces bomb the city. Stanislavskyi, who holds the Guinness World Record as the world’s oldest tennis playerHe told Reuters that “I hope to live to be 100. I have to survive this terrifying situation.”
In this sense, the long-time player assures that “since the war began until now I have practically not gone out. I have stayed at home… I have provisions, the fridge is full. I am sitting at home, not going anywhere”.
I have hearing problems, so I sleep at night and hear nothing. there was bombing last night
Stanislavskyi, who survived World War II – he was an engineer who helped build Soviet fighter planes to fight the Nazis – explains that “my daughter Tanya is in Poland, she wants to take me there. But I decided to stay here. I have financial problems.” audition, so I sleep at night and don’t hear anything. There was shelling last night.”
“I never thought I would have to live through another more terrifying war in which people on both sides die: mothers lose their children, wives lose their children and their husbands,” he added.
