WATCH HER ANSWER HERE.

In a press conference after winning her first Wimbledon Women’s Singles Final on July 9, 2022, Elena Rybakina, the Russian-born tennis player who acquired Kazakh citizenship at the age of nineteen and switched to playing for Kazakhstan in 2018 in return for financial support from the Kazakhstan Tennis Federation, pretended not to understand the second part of a journalist’s question about whether she condemned “the war and Putin’s actions.” First she said that she didn’t hear the second part of the question, and asked for it to be repeated. Then she replied that her English “was not the greatest” and that she didn’t understand the second part of the question, and she proceeded to speak only about representing Kazakhstan.

Of course, she did understand the second part of the question. Her English was more than up to the task. She had no problems understanding and answering any of the other questions she was asked. It was just that she did not want to answer that part of the question. And she also did not want to refuse to answer that part of the question.

Answering that part of the question was a lose-lose proposition. Either she would condemn the war and Putin, and thereby cause a political incident, possibly putting herself and her Russian family in danger, or she would not condemn the war and Putin, and thereby cause a PR nightmare for herself, and possibly lose her Adidas endorsement, not to mention the support of her fans. Openly refusing to answer that part of the question could also cause an incident, however, since she would be publicly refusing to take a stand on the most serious political and humanitarian crisis in the world at the moment – the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army.

So she pretended not to understand what she had been asked.

To some philosophers, Rybakina non-deceptively lied when she said that her English “was not the greatest” and that she didn’t understand the second part of the question. More specifically, she told what they call a ‘bald-faced lie‘. In the case of a ‘bald-faced lie’, both the speaker and audience are aware that the speaker is lying, and both are aware that both are aware that the speaker is lying, and so on. The speaker is not trying to deceive her audience, since deception would be impossible – the falsehood of what is being said is obvious. The speaker has some other goal. In this particular case, the goal is to avoid answering the question, but also, to convey that she is avoiding answering that question — without actually saying that she is avoiding answering the question. She may even have the goal of conveying that this question is not one that she should be asked, given the danger of answering that question. Most importantly, for Putin or any of his stooges looking on, the goal is to say nothing that they could use against her.

To those philosophers who do not accept that such non-deceptions are lies, Rybakina merely told an ‘untruth’ or a ‘falsification’, that is, a falsehood that is not intended to deceive and that, at least, normally is intended to communicate something else. The traditional servant’s response to an unwelcome guest, “The master is not at home”, which is meant to communicate “You are not welcome here”, would be an example of an ‘untruth’ or a ‘falsification.’ So would the public announcement, “He wishes to spend more time with his family,” made by a company after a CEO becomes embroiled in a scandal or is removed in a boardroom coup, which communicates to the public that he was forced out. Saying my English “is not the greatest” (and even “I don’t understand the question”), when it is clear to all that your English is perfectly fine, is a way to communicate “I am not answering that question” and/or “Do not ask me that question, because answering it would get me into a lot of trouble.”

Even at the relatively young age of twenty-three, Rybakina, who spent most of her life in Russia, certainly seems to be adept in handling journalists’ questions and avoiding saying anything that would get her into trouble with Putin. Well played.

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