Victoria Azarenka was booed off court by the Wimbledon crowd following her defeat to Elina Svitolina on Sunday.
Ukrainian Svitolina has not shaken hands with Russian or Belarusian players following Russia’s invasion of her home country in February.
She reiterated her stance ahead of the tournament and following her 2-6 6-4 7-6 (11-9) victory both players did not meet at the net as is traditional.
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While Svitolina was saluted for her efforts, Belarusian Azarenka was booed off by those in attendance on Court One, who may have been unaware of Svitolina’s position when it comes to handshakes with players from those countries.
“I feel like it’s been pretty consistent for the last 18, 19 months. I haven’t done anything wrong, but keep getting different treatment sometimes,” Azarenka said in her press conference afterwards.
“But what can I say about the crowd? There is nothing to say. She doesn’t want to shake hands with Russian, Belarusian people. I respected her decision. What should I have done? Stayed and waited?
Epic. Elina ✨@ElinaSvitolina outlasts Victoria Azarenka in a rollercoaster three-set thriller to progress to the quarter-finals 2-6, 6-4, 7-6(9) 👏#Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/vikVFGuTFj
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 9, 2023
“Like, I mean, there’s no thing that I could do that would have been right, so I just did what I thought was respectful towards her decision.
“But this conversation about shaking hands is not a life-changing conversation. So if you guys want to keep talking about it, bring it up, make it a big deal, headlines, whatever it is, keep going.
“I thought it was a great tennis match. If people are going to be focusing only on handshakes or crowd, quite drunk crowd, booing in the end, that’s a shame. That’s probably what it is in the end of the day.
“It was a tennis match. We are here, tennis match. Nobody’s changing lives here. We are playing tennis. We’re doing our jobs. That’s it.”
Svitolina believes it’s time tennis authorities stepped in.
“For me personally, I think the tennis organizations, they have to come out with a statement that there will be no handshake between Russian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian players,” she added.
“I don’t know if it’s maybe not clear for people. Some people not really know what is happening. So I think this is the right way to do.”
Svitolina will next play world number one Iga Swiatek in the quarter-finals on Wednesday.
Tournament favourite Swiatek earlier survived a severe scare to advance past Belinda Bencic in three sets.
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How Wimbledon has reacted to the return of Russian and Belarusian players
(Photo: Patrick Smith/Getty Images)
