Daniil Medvedev jumps to Victoria Azarenka’s defense over unjust booing after losing to Elina Svitolina in Wimbledon

Elina Svitolina refused to shake hands with Victoria Azarenka after match and Medvedev was asked to comment on the issue.

Daniil Medvedev jumps to Victoria Azarenka’s defense over unjust booing after losing to Elina Svitolina in Wimbledon

(L) Daniil Medvedev defends (R) Victoria Azarenka (Image via @Wimbledon/YouTube)

A lot of fuss was generated after yesterday’s round of 16 clash between Belarus’ Victoria Azarenka and Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina with talks about the match still revolving around even though 24 hours have passed. Svitolina beat Azarenka to book a place in the quarter-finals after a hard-fought tiebreaker with the final score reading 2-6, 6-4, 7-6 (11-9).

Yesterday, Svitolina refused to shake hands with Azarenka due to their nations’ differences, and Daniil Medvedev was asked to comment on this issue and give his thoughts on the incident of the crowds booing her. He talked about how hard it was for Azarenka to lose a match by the score of 11-9 on the tiebreaker after battling the match for over two hours.

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He also had his take on the crowd booing Azarenka, saying, “As she 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. But I think the people didn’t know the story behind it, and that’s why it happened.”

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How was Victoria Azarenka’s take on this incident?

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Azarenka leaving the court without shaking hands with Svitolina after the match. (credits: Le Parisien)

Fans at Wimbledon attacked Viktoria after the end of the match with several hate comments and boos, expecting that it was the Belarusian who refused to shake hands with Svitolina. But this decision was mutually decided between the players even before the match started, as Svitolina made it very clear that she will not be shaking hands with any of the Russian or Belarusian players until and unless Ukraine gets their occupied territories back.

Azarenka was just kind enough to respect her decision and talked down the tunnel, surviving the boos around the stadium. When she was asked to comment on this incident at the post-match conference, she added, “There is nothing to say. She doesn’t wanna shake hands with Russian, Belarussian people. I just respected her decision. What should I have done? Stayed and waited? There is no thing I could do that would have been right.”

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