"Thinking of you... hoping all calms down soon" - Novak Djokovic's message of support to Sergiy Stakhovsky
Former tennis player Sergiy Stakhovsky, who joined the Ukrainian military amid Russia's ongoing invasion of the country, took to social media on Sunday to share a message of support sent to him by Novak Djokovic.
Stakhovsky earlier revealed that the Serb reached out to him with a "message of support" but did not divulge any details on the contents of the message,
That changed on Sunday when he shared a screenshot of his WhatsApp conversation with Djokovic on his official Instagram handle.
The picture showed the former World No. 1 enquiring about Stakhovsky's whereabouts, while also offering financial and other forms of help in these difficult circumstances.
"Stako, how are you man? Are you on field? Thinking of you .. hoping all calms down soon. Please let me know what would be the best address to send help, financial help, any other help as well," Djokovic wrote.
Djokovic also expressed concern for Stakhovsky's well-being and added that he hoped things would improve for Ukraine in the coming days.
Sergiy Stakhovsky announced his retirement from tennis this January after failing to qualify for the Australian Open. He faced Djokovic four times during his career, with the Serb emerging victorious on each of those occasions.
"My grandparents are buried here and I would like to have a history to tell to my kids" - Sergiy Stakhovsky
In a recent interview with CNN, Stakhovsky spoke about his motivation behind joining the military to defend Ukraine. The 36-year-old said he wanted his children to know about the history of their country and that it would not be possible if he was to stay home and watch Ukraine fall.
Stakhovsky added that if Russia was to succeed in taking control, they would rewrite the country's history.
"I was born in Ukraine," Stakhovsky said. "Ukraine, never as a country gave me any support, whether but it was developing my sport or regarding any other matter, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Whether something was given to me by my country or not. I was born here. My grandparents are buried here and I would like to have a history to tell to my kids."
"If I would stay home and Ukraine would fail, the nobody would know Ukraine," he continued. "Not even history books because according to Putin, Ukraine was established by Lenin in the beginning of the Soviet Union that it never existed before that. And those lies would then transform into history books and more than history of Ukraine would be nonexistent"