Wimbledon Refuses to Make Announcements on Ukraine Players’ Non-Handshake Practice

By Erik Gudris | @ATNTennis | Monday July 10, 2023

The official coverage of Wimbledon on participant handshake etiquette is to not have one in any respect.

That’s the assertion being made by event organizers regardless of calls by gamers to let followers know earlier than a match on why Ukrainian gamers received’t shake fingers with both Russian or Belarusian gamers.

“We’ve no intention of doing that,” stated Wimbledon chief govt Sally Bolton on Monday.

Skipping the post-match handshake between Ukrianian and Russian/Belarusian gamers has been commonplace for the reason that begin of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, which started final February. Many followers have but to get the memo, nevertheless.

At many tour-level occasions, they find yourself booing one or each gamers, creating awkward and uncomfortable conditions after a match.

That occurred on the finish of the fourth spherical assembly between Elina Svitolina of Ukraine and Victoria Azarenka of Belarus. Svitolina, who received the match, didn’t shake Azarenka’s hand. Azarenka for her half did acknowledge her opponent however ended up getting booed by most of the Court No. 1 crowd as she walked off the courtroom.

In her post-match press convention on Sunday, Svitolina referred to as on tennis governing our bodies to do extra to make tennis watchers conscious.

“For me personally, I think the tennis organizations, they have to come out with a statement that there will be no handshake between Russian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian players,” she said. “I don’t know if it’s maybe not clear for people. Some people not really know what is happening. So I think this is the right way to do.”

The WTA posted a message on its social media channels in an effort to make clear the apply.

WTA Statement on post-match handshakes:

Following the unlucky circumstances and misunderstanding in yesterday’s match at @Wimbledon (together with different matches the previous a number of weeks), the WTA want to present readability round post-match handshakes.

Due to the continuing…

— wta (@WTA) July 10, 2023

Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus additionally agreed with Svitolina that extra must be carried out to deal with the difficulty. Svitolina herself was booed by Paris followers when she didn’t shake Sabalenka’s hand after dropping to her within the Roland Garros quarterfinals final month.

“As Elina said, I think someone have to come out on social media with the announcement that there is not going to be handshake so players will not leave court with so much hate,” Sabalenka stated after her Wimbledon quarterfinal win over Ekaterina Alexandrova.

Daniil Medvedev of Russia additionally agreed with each Azarenka and Svitolina that the boos after the match had been unlucky.

“As she [Azarenka] said, I actually liked her response on the press conference, she respected the decision of Svitolina, about not shaking hands. I think the crowd that comes, Court 1 is what, maybe 10,000 people. I actually don’t know. They’re not all going to know the story behind this. They just saw Vika not shaking hands. That’s why I think they booed her. I liked her response where she said it was a great match and let’s talk about tennis.

“I think it’s a pity for sure for her that she got booed, and probably for no reason. But I think the people didn’t know the story behind it, and that’s why it happened.”