Picture Credit: Twitter
The Ukrainian tennis star Elina Svitolina has confirmed that the officials at the Washington Open 2023 will make an announcement to the crowd about her intention of not shaking hands with Victoria Azarenka of Belarus. On July 31, Monday, these two are set to play their first-round clash in the 11th edition of the tournament, at the William H.G. FitzGerald Tennis Center.
The issue involving Svitolina and Azarenka came to be, during the fourth-round tie of the Wimbledon 2023 at SW19. After the Ukrainian managed to beat her Belarusian counterpart 2-6, 6-4, 7-6 in a thriller, she didn’t shake her hand, which is a tradition amongst the players in the tennis world, due to the war going on between their countries.
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Victoria Azarenka, who knew what was about to happen, didn’t even walk up to the net, instead, she headed to her chair to collect her bag before exiting the No. 1 court. This led to the crowd at SW19 tearing into the 34-year-old, booing her out of the court, which she didn’t take too kindly to, making hand gestures at them before going after them in the post-match press conference.
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Notably, before starting her build-up to the US Open on the hard courts in Washington D.C., Elina Svitolina spoke with WTA CEO, Steve Simon. She talked about her conversation with him in the pre-tournament press conference and said, “After our match at Wimbledon, the WTA, as you know, I said that there will be no handshake between Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian players.”
“Just yesterday I spoke with Steve Simon and he told me that they would announce before our match that there would be no handshake. So I am happy with that,” remarked the 28-year-old.
