Aryna Sabalenka’s day began with a routine demolition of Russia’s Kamilla Rakhimova propelling the world’s No. 2 player, who is from Belarus, into the second week of the French Open as expected.

But then Sabalenka put herself, the tournament and tennis once again at the center of the debate over sports and the war in Ukraine by refusing to attend the mandatory post-match news conference. She said she had felt insecure during a news conference earlier this week when Sabalenka was asked by a journalist from Ukraine about her support for President Alexandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus, who has backed Russia’s war against Ukraine.

“I didn’t feel safe at the press conference on Wednesday,” Sabalenka said at the beginning of a transcript of her remarks after her 6-2, 6-2 win over Rakhimova. “I should be able to feel safe when I do interviews with reporters after my matches. For my own mental health and well-being, I have decided to get out of this situation today, and the tournament has supported me in this decision.”

Cédric Laurent, a spokesman for the French tennis federation, the FFT, which organizes this Grand Slam tournament, which has been dominated by geopolitics from the start, said federation officials learned after Sabalenka’s match that she would not participate. at the press conference.

French Open officials approved Sabalenka’s decision for Friday’s match, but said a decision had not yet been made on her press conferences for the remainder of the tournament.

Laurent said a “group” was selected to interview Sabalenka, but declined to specify who was in the group or if they were members of the independent media or worked for the women’s tennis tournament or tour, the WTA.

A person with knowledge of the situation who was not authorized to speak on the matter said only one person, a WTA employee, asked questions in the group interview.

A person familiar with the WTA’s actions who was also not authorized to speak on the matter said the organization supported Sabalenka’s wish not to participate in the news conference and the way her remarks were delivered.

Representatives for Sabalenka at IMG, the sports and entertainment firm that is a unit of Endeavor, did not respond to requests for comment.

The decision on Sabalenka comes two years after a confrontation with Naomi Osaka over attending press conferences led her to pull out of the French Open. Osaka announced on social media before the start of the tournament that she would not participate in press conferences to protect her mental health and that she would pay any fines she received.

After Osaka skipped the press conference following her first-round win, she was fined $15,000 by the tournament referee, and the leaders of the four Grand Slam competitions (the Australian, French, and US Open, and Wimbledon) threatened to throw her out of the French Open and she would face stiffer penalties if she failed to comply with her obligations to the media.

Osaka, a four-time Grand Slam champion and one of the highest-ranked players in the world at the time, retired the next day, announcing for the first time that she had been battling depression and was planning to take a break from tennis. She returned seven weeks later, but drifted away from her once more in the fall of 2021. She battled injuries for much of 2022 and is now pregnant with her first child, though she has said she intends to return after her birth.

In Sabalenka’s case, the decision came after two tense exchanges with Daria Meshcheriakova, a part-time journalist from Ukraine who works for Tribuna, a sports publication based in the country.

During the first exchange, Meshcheriakova asked Sabalenka what her message to the world was about the war and why she had claimed that the Ukrainian players “hated” it. Sabalenka denied saying that, and afterwards she spoke more openly than ever about the war.

“No one in this world, Russian athletes or Belarusian athletes, supports the war. Nobody,” said Sabalenka, who lives in Miami. “How can we support the war? No one, normal people will ever support him.”

Three days later, after Sabalenka’s second-round match, Meshcheriakova challenged her for a letter she allegedly signed in 2020 in support of Lukashenko, “at a time when he was torturing and beating protesters in the street,” and for having participated in a New Year Celebration with him.

The letter Sabalenka allegedly signed has not been made public, and her New Year’s celebration with the Belarusian president has not been independently verified, although there are many photos of Sabalenka and Lukashenko together. In an interview on Friday, Meshcheriakova, who left Kiev for the Netherlands 10 days after the war started when missiles hit near her apartment and whose parents still live in Russian-occupied Luhansk, said she learned about the letter and the New Year’s celebration by prominent Belarusian journalists who had been forced to leave the country.

“It’s true,” Meshcheriakova said, “and you saw how she responded.”

Sabalenka said she had no comment on any of the questions, then began answering Meshcheriakova’s next question: “So you basically support everything because you can’t talk? You are not a small person, Aryna.

But Sabalenka was quickly cut off when a moderator said Sabalenka had made it clear she would not comment further.

“Everything is clear to us,” Meshcheriakova said to conclude the exchange.

Elina Svitolina, who is something of an unofficial leader for the Ukrainian tour members, said they simply wanted to hear from the players representing Russia and Belarus who believe their countries should end the war.

“I think almost every Ukrainian woman would love to hear that from her,” Svitolina said after her three-set win over Russia’s Anna Blinkova.

Like the other Ukrainian players, Svitolina did not shake hands with Blinkova after the match.

“Can you imagine the guy or the girl on the front lines right now, you know, looking at me and me acting like nothing is happening,” Svitolina said. “I am representing my country. I have a voice.

Sabalenka is scheduled to play Sloane Stephens of the United States on Sunday in the fourth round. It is not yet clear if she will face reporters after the game.

Meshcheriakova, who works as a political analyst as well as covering sports, said she would return to her day job after Saturday. She said that she had been using vacation time to report on the tournament and was paying her own expenses.

In Osaka’s case, tournament officials said not requiring Osaka to attend press conferences could give him an unfair advantage over other players.

Stephens, who is a member of the WTA Player Council, said on Friday that she supported Sabalenka’s decision not to attend her news conference and that every player had the right to feel safe in fulfilling her obligations to the media.

“Everyone needs to feel good about themselves and what they’re doing,” Stephens said. “If she doesn’t feel safe, then she doesn’t need to be there. That’s the end of it.”

Meshcheriakova said she had spoken to her parents earlier that day. Her mother, she said, had been watching Russian media coverage of the story, in which she described her using the Russian words for a black transvestite. She implored her daughter to stop covering the tournament and leave immediately.

“Of course I told him I wouldn’t,” Meshcheriakova said. “I am a journalist.”