“It was like in the movies”: Ukraine’s third ranked tennis player was almost deported from the US
10 March 2025 13:10
Ukrainian tennis player, third-ranked Diana Yastremska, was almost deported from the United States, where she arrived to play in the Indian Wells Masters tournament. She told about it in an interview with the portal btu.org.ua, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports
According to the tennis player, her problems were related to the fact that someone had filed an application with Interpol.
“I was flying to the United States on the route Nice-Istanbul, Istanbul-San Francisco, and upon arrival they wanted to deport me to Ukraine because someone through Interpol officially filed a statement with the United States that my passport and visa were lost. In fact, this is not true, I had my passport in my hands and it was never lost at all,”
– said the tennis player.
After that, she spent four hours at the airport police station waiting for officials and police to resolve the issue. As it turned out, she could not avoid problems with her visa, although she did not have to be deported.
“By law, in the United States, if a passport is considered lost in the system, the American visa becomes automatically invalid. They crossed it out for me and, to be honest, I thought that was it, we’re going back. But in fact, I had a visa for another two years,”
– says Yastremska.
Thus, having a valid visa and passport, the Ukrainian tennis player had problems out of the blue that she will now have to solve if she wants to participate in tournaments in the United States.
“In four hours, I was given a piece of paper stating that I can stay in the US for six months, after which my visa needs to be reworked. It was nerve-wracking and tense, just like in the movies. The most interesting thing is that they could not see in the system who had informed them that my passport had been lost,”
– said Diana Yastremska.
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Indian Wells 2025
After this meeting, the Ukrainian tennis player did not have a very successful tournament. At first, she coped quite easily with world No. 64 Yu Yuan – 6:2, 6:4. However, in the very next match she had to play against the world’s second ranked Iga Sviatek, whom Yastremska lost to with a score of 0:6, 2:6.
Now there are two Ukrainian players left in the tournament – Elina Svitolina and Marta Kostiuk. Both will play on March 12 in the fourth round – the 1/8 finals. Elina Svitolina’s opponent will be the world No. 23 Elina Svitolina will face the fourth-ranked American Jessica Pegula. Another Ukrainian, world No. 24 Marta Kostiuk, will play against world No. 9 Zhen Kinwen of China.
Diana Yastremska: dossier
Diana Yastremska is a 24-year-old Ukrainian tennis player who was born and lives in Odesa. She started playing tennis at the age of five and trained as a junior in Istanbul, at the Koza WOS Academy. In 2019, she was nominated for the WTA Rookie of the Year award.
In junior competitions, Yastremska rose to No. 6 in the ITF rankings and became a finalist at the Wimbledon Girls’ Tournament in 2016. She played her first career matches in ITF tournaments in 2015, and made her debut in WTA tournaments in 2016 in Istanbul, where she received a wild card but lost in the first round.
An important achievement in Jastremska’s career was that she became the first woman born in the 2000s to enter the WTA Top 100, debuting at No. 100 on July 16, 2018. That same year, she won her first WTA title in Hong Kong, defeating Wang Qiang in the final, and also scored her first win over a Top 20 player, beating Garbine Muguruza (#13) in the semifinals in Luxembourg.
In 2019, Jastremska won two more WTA singles titles in Hua Hin and Strasbourg. She also reached the quarterfinals in Wuhan, where she scored her first victory over a Top 5 player, defeating Karolin Pliskova (#2). At Wimbledon 2019, she reached the last 16, marking her breakthrough at a Grand Slam. The same year, she qualified for the WTA Elite Trophy in Zhuhai and reached her first doubles final in Beijing with Jelena Ostapenko.
In 2020, Jastremska’s best result was the final in Adelaide, where she lost, but on the way to the final she won three consecutive victories over players in the Top 20. 2021 was marked by a semifinal in Hamburg and a quarterfinal in Courmayeur. In 2022, she became a finalist in Lyon and reached the quarterfinals in Dubai, Bogota and Birmingham.
In 2023, Jastremska showed her best results at the WTA 125 tournaments, winning the title in Kozierka and reaching the semifinals in Reus and Angers. the year 2024 was a fabulous one for her, as she reached her first Grand Slam semifinal at the Australian Open, qualifying and defeating No. 7 Wondrousova and two-time major champion Azarenka. In July 2024, she reached her highest ranking in almost four years, rising to No. 25. At the beginning of 2025, Jastremska became a finalist in the Linz tournament.
Diana Yastremska also represented the Ukrainian national team in the Federation Cup in 2019-2020. She is currently ranked 46th in the world rankings and is the third racket of Ukraine.
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