Victoria Azarenka blasts ‘DRUNK’ Wimbledon crowd for booing her following defeat to Elina Svitolina as she addresses being the victim
Azarenka was booed off court after her loss to Elina Svitolina, before she left the court with a parting fist gesture.
Follow Us
Victoria Azarenka gets booed by the Wimbledon crowd (Credits: Wimbledon)
Belarusian tennis player and World No. 20 Victoria Azarenka came under heavy fire from the Wimbledon crowd after not shaking hands with her opponent Elina Svitolina after their round of 16 matches. The 2-time Slam champion’s frustration with the unjust crowd was visible during her press-conference.
Azarenka said, “I can’t control the crowd. I’m not sure that a lot of people were understanding what’s happening, so… It’s probably been a lot of Pimm’s (a popular alcoholic drink) throughout the day. What we agreed on (referring to their agreement of not shaking hands before the match): it wasn’t fair. It is what it is. What can I do?”
While Azarenka clarified that wrongly facing the brunt of the crowd does not make her a victim, she said that the booing was definitely uncalled for. “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.”
Azarenka clarified that there is nothing else she could have done in that situation
The match was a lengthy and competitive one, ending with a final set tiebreak which went the way of the Ukrainian Svitolina. Referring to her refusal to shake hands, Azarenka said that there is nothing she could have done in that situation, “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.”
The Belarusian, however, is only too willing to put the incident behind her, and focus on the great tennis match the duo put up for everyone to watch. She said, “If you guys want to keep talking about the gesture, 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. Nobody’s changing lives here. We’re doing our jobs. That’s it.”
Svitolina is set to face the top seed Iga Swiatek in the quarterfinals at Wimbledon.
In case you missed it:
- Who coaches Roman Safiullin? Know more about the Russian’s coaching staff
- Wimbledon 2023: Order of Play for Day 8, Monday, 10th July, 2023 featuring Novak Djokovic, Aryna Sabalenka and Carlos Alcaraz
Stay Updated!
Ketan Kunkalikar
(129 Articles Published)