Marta Kostyuk Will Not Break

The morning of her first round-match at Roland-Garros, Marta Kostyuk learned that a Russian missile attack had killed four people in her native Kyiv, Ukraine, dangerously near her parents' house. Most of the morning I felt sick if it was 100 metres closer, I probably wouldn’t have a mom and a sister today, Kostyuk said after her comfortable win against Russian-born Oksana Selekhmeteva. Compartmentalization sometimes impresses as much as any athletic exploit. In the middle of her fourth-round match against four-time champion Iga Swiatek, Kostyuk was dancing. She'd never taken a set off Swiatek before, but survived the opener 7-5 despite being down a break on two occasions. After a brief chat with coach and blogger Sandra Zaniewska, who spent the match taking notes atop a copy of Sally Rooney's Intermezzo, Kostyuk had a few extra moments before Swiatek returned from her standard bathroom break and got her boogie on to the courtside music to cheers from the crowd. Everybody should have known the eventual result right then. You simply do not dance on court unless your game is singing. An out-of-sorts Swiatek returned from the toilet and broke serve in the first game of the second set, then watched Kostyuk swipe the next six in a row to inflict the most resounding defeat Iga has absorbed at this tournament in seven years. The day of Kostyuk's quarterfinal on Tuesday, Russian missiles and drones killed at least 22 more Ukrainians, two children among them. Against her countrywoman Elina Svitolina, who had mentored Kostyuk and is in arguably career-best form, Kostyuk won in three sets. The quirks and sharp edges of tennis regularly drive players to various displays of infancy, as if each missed backhand or dubious line call represents a vital part of their life shattering before their eyes. Despite shouldering truly life-altering stress, Kostyuk was even-keeled throughout, greeting misses with smiles or shrugs in which the frustration level looked closer to everyday levels than Daniil Medvedev.