In the midst of a recent controversy involving Victoria Azarenka and Elina Svitolina, Wimbledon has made its stance clear regarding handshakes. Svitolina, hailing from Ukraine, expressed the need for tennis authorities to inform the public that Ukrainians will not be shaking hands with Russian and Belarusian players after matches.
The aim is to prevent fans from misunderstanding and booing, assuming players are intentionally snubbing each other. The incident that sparked attention occurred on No. 1 Court when Azarenka, a Belarusian player, did not approach the net to shake hands with Svitolina following the Ukrainian player’s victory on Sunday.
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Azarenka was aware that Svitolina refrains from shaking hands with Russians and Belarusians as a protest against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Instead, Azarenka opted to wave as a sign of respect for Svitolina’s decision. However, she received a significant disapproval from the crowd not knowing the motivation behind her action.
Wimbledon confirms it won’t get involved in handshakes
Supporting Svitolina’s call for transparency, second-seeded Aryna Sabalenka from Belarus emphasized the need for an official announcement to clarify the situation. This would help prevent players from leaving the court amidst an atmosphere of animosity and would allow the crowd to better understand the reasons behind the absence of handshakes, that isn’t going to happen.
“We have no intention of doing that. 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. We have an incredibly knowledgeable audience at Wimbledon, and I think in the most part they would understand what was going on. I wouldn’t want to speculate on what everybody in the crowd was thinking”, Wimbledon chief executive Sally Bolton said.
