Two-time Grand Slam champion Victoria Azarenka said she doesn’t care about a message that was shown to fans midway through her latest match against Elina Svitolina at the Citi Open.
After the first set, the electronic board published a brief statement explaining that there would be no handshake at the end of the match due to the stance of Ukrainian players who refused to shake hands with those from either Russia or Belarus due to the ongoing war. The move was done to prevent a similar situation that happened during Wimbledon where Azarenka got booed after the match for not shaking hands with Svitolina. In their latest encounter, she acknowledged her opponent by producing a thumbs up towards her.
Svitolina defeated Azarenka 7-6(2), 6-4, to record her second win over the former world No.1 in as many months. Before this year, she was on a five-match losing streak against her rival and was yet to beat her on the Tour.
Following their latest match, Azarenka was asked about the handshake message which prompted a bemused response from the 34-year-old who hit out at the decision of journalists to continue covering the topic.
“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 said.
“I mean, it’s just, to me, I don’t care. We just move on. We play a tennis match. As I said in Wimbledon, I accept, respect somebody’s position. That’s it. No more.”
In contrast, Svitolina said the gesture was ‘the right thing to do’ and praised the WTA for taking action on the matter. She is an ambassador for UNITED24 which is an organisation set up by her president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to raise funds for Ukraine. The United Nations has verified that at least 9000 civilians have been killed in the conflict that began on February 24th 2022.
“I think it’s the right thing,” said Svitolina. “I knew that it was going to happen, and I asked for the WTA to respect the decision of the Ukrainians. And they did, so I’m happy they reacted.”
Currently on the Tour players from Russia and Belarus can only compete under a neutral status but they are suspended from playing in team competitions such as the Davis Cup. Both the WTA and ATP have previously dismissed calls for them to be banned from events by arguing that players should not be punished for the actions of their governments.
In Washington, Svitolina will play fifth seed Daria Kasatkina in the second round who defeated Elise Mertens 6-3, 7-5, in her opening match. She has a perfect 7-0 record against the Russian in their head-to-head and has only ever dropped two sets against her.
