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Victoria Azarenka gave a thumbs-up to Elina Svitolina following the conclusion of their Washington match and the crowd was respectful toward both players. Just three weeks earlier, Azarenka got heavily booed by the Wimbledon crowd moments after her Wimbledon round-of-16 loss to Svitolina.
This time, Svitolina asked an announcement to be made that there would be no handshake after their Washington match. Svitolina's request was granted and everything went fine.
After suffering a 6-7 (2) 4-6 loss to Svitolina in Washington, Azarenka was asked about the no-handshake announcement. "We just move on.No booing after Elina Svitolina & Victoria Azarenka match in Washington.
This is how it should’ve been at Wimbledon.
The tournament making a statement about the no handshake was the right decision.
No one was booed & both women got the respect they deserved.pic.twitter.com/6KgNh1fwVI — The Tennis Letter (@TheTennisLetter) August 1, 2023
We play a tennis match. As I said in Wimbledon, I accept, respect somebody's position. That's it,"
Azarenka said post-match.The Washington crowd treated Azarenka respectfully
At Wimbledon, Azarenka was booed off court following her loss to Svitolina.
After the match, Azarenka was asked how it felt to be booed when she "hadn't done anything wrong." "Yeah, I feel like it's been pretty consistent for the last 18, 19 months. I haven't done anything wrong, but keep getting different treatment sometimes.
But what can I say about the crowd? There is nothing to say. She doesn't want to shake hands with Russian, Belarusian people. I respected her decision. What should I have done? Stayed and waited? Like, I mean, there's no thing that I could do that would have been right, so I just did what I thought was respectful towards her decision.
But this conversation about shaking hands is not a life-changing conversation. So if you guys want to keep talking about it, bring it up, make it a big deal, headlines, whatever it is, keep going. I thought it was a great tennis match.
If people are going to be focusing only on handshakes or crowd, quite drunk crowd, booing in the end, that's a shame. That's probably what it is in the end of the day. It was a tennis match. We are here, tennis match. Nobody's changing lives here.
We are playing tennis. We're doing our jobs. That's it," Azarenka said at Wimbledon.