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Wife of WNBA star Brittney Griner says scheduled call never happened because embassy was unstaffed

WASHINGTON -- WNBA star Brittney Griner tried to call her wife nearly a dozen times through the U.S. Embassy in Russia on the couple's fourth anniversary Saturday, but they never connected since the phone line at the embassy was not staffed, Cherelle Griner said Monday.

The couple has not spoken by phone in the four months since Griner's arrest in Russia on drug-related charges. That was to have changed Saturday, when a long-awaited call was to have finally taken place. But the day came and went without any contact, leaving an anguished Cherelle Griner to wonder what went wrong and to suspect at least initially that Russian authorities had thwarted the call.