Sabalenka wants shield from ‘hate’ after Azarenka booing

Belarusian second seed Aryna Sabalenka has backed Ukrainian Elina Svitolina’s call for a statement from tennis authorities to explain the absence of handshakes between Ukrainian players and their Russian and Belarusian rivals at Wimbledon to shield players from “so much hate”.

Victoria Azarenka of Belarus was booed off court after her defeat by Svitolina on Sunday.

As has become common, Svitolina did not shake hands with Azarenka in protest against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Belarus is a key military ally of Moscow.

Azarenka, who held her hand up in the direction of Svitolina, seemingly in a gesture of respect, left the court to a chorus of boos from some of the spectators.

The two-time Australian Open champion said her treatment “wasn’t fair”.

“I thought it was a great tennis match,” she said. “If people are going to be focusing only on handshakes or the crowd, quite drunk crowd, booing in the end, that’s a shame.”

Svitolina and her fellow Ukrainian players all refused to shake hands with Russians and Belarusians at the recent French Open.

She called on the sport’s governing bodies to explain the position of Ukraine players.

“I don’t know if it’s maybe not clear for people, some people not really knowing what is happening,” she said. “So I think this is the right [thing] to do.”

Sabalenka, who beat Russia’s Ekaterina Alexandrova on Monday to reach the quarter-finals, backed Svitolina’s call.

“As Elina said, I think someone has to come out on social media with the announcement that there is not going to be a handshake so players will not leave the court with so much hate,” she said.

“It would be good for the crowd to actually know what’s going on. There is a reason behind no handshake.”

Men’s third seed Daniil Medvedev said it was a “pity” that Azarenka was booed.

The Russian added: “I think the people didn’t know the story behind it, and that’s why it happened.”

Personal decision

Late on Monday, the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), the governing body for global women’s professional tennis, issued a statement “to provide clarity around post-match handshakes.”

“Due to the ongoing reprehensible war, the WTA respects the position of the Ukrainian athletes in foregoing the tradition of shaking opponents’ hands (from Russia and Belarus) at the end of a match, as this is a personal decision,” it wrote on Twitter.

WTA Statement on post-match handshakes:

Following the unfortunate circumstances and misunderstanding in yesterday’s match at @Wimbledon (along with other matches the past several weeks), the WTA would like to provide clarity around post-match handshakes.

Due to the ongoing…

— wta (@WTA) July 10, 2023

Earlier, All England Club Chief Executive Sally Bolton said Wimbledon had no plans to issue a statement.

“Historically in tennis, the decision on how a player reacts at the end of a match is entirely a personal decision for them, and I think we don’t really want to start mandating what happens,” she said.

“I think we have an incredibly knowledgeable audience at Wimbledon, and I think in most part they would understand what was happening.”

She admitted it is impossible to control the crowd, calling for the sporting action to be centre stage at the tournament.

There are four players in the quarter-finals at Wimbledon who are representing Russia or Belarus, a year after athletes from the two nations were banned by the All England Club.

Bolton was asked how tournament organisers would feel about handing the trophy to a player from one of the two nations.

“When we made the decision earlier this year to admit Russians and Belarusians, we thought really carefully about all of those things, and having made the decision to admit them, we are comfortable about how that plays out,” she said.