The tennis story: By 2013 he had defeated Federer, now fighting against Russian forces

His parents heard explosions outside their home in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev.

Russia had begun its conquest.

Stakhovksy released the news, and from that moment on he did not get any sleep or think for three days while trying to process what was going on.

I couldn't believe the images I was looking at”, he confessed to the BBC. I tried to understand where my family was, what they were doing and how bad the situation was”.

Just a month earlier, Stakhovsky had been playing in qualifications for “Australian Open”. The defeat in Melbourne at the age of 36 led him to decide to retire, ending his 19-year tennis career. In 2010 he was listed as the world's number 31 tennis player. In 2013 he had defeated the famous tennis player and the multiple world champion Roger Federer in Wimbledon, ending the 36 consecutive performance in the Grand Slam champion's quarterfinals.

He knew what his next step would be.

He restored his family to Budapest, Hungary, where they live. His wife asked him what he was planning to do.

The “was not the answer she wanted to hear, and she became nervous”, Stakhovsky says.

I have played proudly for 17 years in Davis Cup so I honestly don't see how I can be privileged and be indifferent to what's happening in my country”.

I actually left. The kids were reading and watching animated movies so I didn't prevent them. The only one who saw me leaving was the youngest and asked me: “Daddy, where are you going? I had my backpack in my back and I said, " “I'll be right back to”.

Stakhovksy did not return, first heading towards Bratislava in Slovakia to get some bulletproof vests and helmets before driving towards the Ukrainian border. People had only begun to leave. He says he's seen about 100 children standing at temperature -8 degrees.

He joined a friend and they started traveling west to Lviv. There he stayed until the night before heading toward Kiev to meet his brother and father. He had already arranged for his mother to leave with his brother's wife and his brother's two daughters.

Stakhovsky was submitted to a military unit, and the following Monday he was stationed in Kiev, trying to help as much as possible. In the capital, the situation began to deteriorate. He had never before had any military training.

We wanted to use that time to the maximum because we didn't condemn when the Russians were actually going to enter Kiev or when they were putting on the strictest grant, like they were doing at Kharkiv”, he says.

We all slept with Kalashnikov next to us. If there were an attack, we should have been about”.

During all that time, he was providing press interviews from where he tried to bring the situation to people's attention. He also wanted to oppose the Russian evaporator around his country.

There were countless alarms, and he kept going down to the shelter. It was an exciting time for him, but his journey to Butchya demonstrated the true horrors of war.

Butcha, a village on the outskirts of Kiev, had been occupied by the Russians for a month at the beginning of the war. There's evidence of tortured, raped and murdered civilians.

The images of the event there have been distributed around the globe, but Stakhovsky says the world has seen only a small part of what happened. At first, he did not know what to do if he was to be in a gunfight. This changed after Butch.

The things they've done and the way they've done it, it's really inhuman”, he says. It's unfathomable that you feel against the Russian army”

The people who lived there did not deserve this. They were not part of this war. They did not want to participate. They were only civilians who didn't have the chance to live”.

I have no hesitation. If I see a Russian soldier, I know what I'd do”.

Since the beginning of the occupation, there has been much discussion on how to respond to Russian athletes and whether they should be prevented from participating in international competitions. Tennis has taken another approach.

In the first few weeks of the conflict, Russian tennis player Andrey Rublev had written <x0 not war, please!” on a TV camera laser after winning a match in Dubai. The world's number two tennis player, Daniil Medvedev, had spoken of “Propromising peace”. That was before Russian law went into effect, which says that all those who distribute them are considered news about the military to be sentenced to 15 years in prison. Since then, most Russian athletes have remained silent.

Last month, Wimbledon announced that Russian athletes would be unable to participate in this year's competition. This decision was met with mixed voices, but Stakhoksky fully supports that decision.

In the first few weeks, I sincerely believed that the Russians, once they see what their army is doing and when they see the destruction of cities and the bombing of places like Kharkiv and Kiev, they would go out and protest”, he adds.

But that didn't happen. Nobody got out. A few went out to protest. There were no mass protests”

“So I support it (Wimbledon's decision). ”

Stakhovsky managed to return to Budapest. During a brief visit, he told his children all about what he had done in Ukraine before leaving for the task.

I explained my wife. We talked in detail, we really talked in detail”, he says. “Now I feel better for myself because I'm back”.

I left the three children and the woman I loved and went to protect my country and my family. There's nothing extraordinary about what I did. But the result may have been different and it could still be”, he added.

♪ Sokol Berisha, Periscopi