Victoria Azarenka has expressed her frustration at the continued questions around Elina Svitolina not shaking hands with her after their recent matches.
Belarusian player Azarenka has faced Ukrainian player Svitolina on the court at Wimbledon and the DC Open recently. The latter has come out on top both times, winning their meeting in the fourth round of the SW19 2-6, 6-4, 7-6 (9). The 28-year-old then also took the victory at the WTA 500 event in Washington, this time defeating the former world No. 1 in straight sets 7-6 (2), 6-4.
At both tournaments, Svitolina refused to shake hands with Azarenka, a stance she and all other Ukrainian players have held toward all those playing for Russia and Belarus since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, a conflict in which Belarus is supporting Russia.
However, the no-handshake policy was misunderstood by the crowd at Wimbledon as they assumed that the net exchange did not take place due to a lack of sportsmanship from the defeated Azarenka, and thus booed her off the court.
Therefore, when the two women faced each other again at the Citi Open, an announcement was made to make it clear why the players would not shake hands. This proved to be effective, as no boos were heard from the crowd and Azarenka even gave Svitolina a thumbs-up before leaving the court.
However, when questioned about the handshake situation in the press conference after the match, Azarenka expressed her confusion as to why the media were so fascinated by it.
Moreover, the 34-year-old underlined that she does not care about not receiving a handshake and respects Svitolina's position,
"I don't care. I mean, how long are we going to talk about that, really? Is that a big story? Is this interesting for people to keep writing the same thing over and over again?" she asked, before adding,
"I mean, it's just, to me, I don't care. We just move on. We play tennis match. As I said in Wimbledon, I accept, respect somebody's position. That's it. No more."
Azarenka on handshake announcement before Elina Svitolina match: “I think we’re about 18 months too late with making this? So happy? I don’t know.. How long are we going to talk about it? We just move on. As I said at Wimbledon, I respect somebody’s position. That’s it. No more”
