Sergiy Stakhovsky only recently announced his retirement from the sport after going out in a first round qualifying defeat to American Jeffrey John Wolf at the Australian Open in January.But following Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine last month, Stakhovsky signed up to fight with his country’s reservists.Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme earlier this week, the 36-year-old revealed that his children - who are too young to understand what's going on in Ukraine - think he's playing at a tennis tournament."My kids don’t know that I’m here, they don’t understand war, they are too little to understand what's going on," he told presenter Karthi Gnanasegaram, before adding that his wife didn't speak to him for a whole day after she learned of his plans to join the war effort.Pressed on where his children think he has gone, Stakhovsky responded: "That just maybe I am at another tennis tournament.
I don’t know if my wife’s told them, but I told them I’d be right back."When asked how it felt to be separated from his family, he said: "Horrible.
I think nobody should ever have that option at all. It’s very hard for me to say how I did it, I’m still not sure actually how I did it."Want to be on the ball with all of the latest football news?Well then sign up for the brilliant Daily Star football email newsletter!From the latest transfer news to the agenda-setting stories, get it all in your email inbox - don't miss a thing.It only takes a matter of seconds.Simply type your email address into the box at the top of this article and hit 'subscribe'.And that's it, job done.
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