Former world number 32, Ukrainian tennis player Julia Vakulenko, has opened up about facing harassment from a 41-year-old coach when she was just 15 years old.
In 1999, after receiving a wild card to the junior Roland Garros, she met the coach who would later become a source of her suffering.
Vakulenko shared that the coach, who took care of all the organizational details, including hotel bookings, decided they would share a room in Paris.
When I lost, he lay down with me. He started caressing and hugging me. I didn’t understand; I was a child, and I saw him as a mentor. We’re taught that in adult-child relationships, we must obey. He was in his forties, but he had a wife and two children. He told me he was in love with me and that I would become a champion. I always had to obey him.
She admitted to starting to hate herself, feeling guilty about what was happening due to her attractiveness. Vakulenko described her life at that time as a nightmare, wishing for the mornings to never come.
Previously, French tennis player Jules Marie accused world number five, Novak Djokovic, of inappropriate behavior during their training sessions.
