Ukraine tennis player, 97, stays in war zone

STORY: Stanislavskyi, who holds the Guinness World Record as the world's oldest living male competitive tennis player, also had dreams of playing Swiss great Roger Federer but now he has only one simple wish - survival.

"I hope I live to reach 100. I have to survive this frightening situation," he told Reuters.

"My daughter Tanya is in Poland, she wants to take me there. But I decided to stay here. I have bad hearing so I sleep at night and don't hear anything. Last night there were bombings, in the morning there were air-raid sirens again."

Stanislavskyi survived the Second World War, when he was an engineer who helped build Soviet warplanes to fight the Nazis.

For Stanislavskyi, an end to the conflict would also mean the chance to resume playing tennis - and possibly to appear at the next Seniors' World Championships, in Florida next month.