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It has been a Wimbledon women's championship dominated by 'the handshake' or lack thereof.
At the start of this week, the Belarussian Victoria Azarenka was the target for boos on No.1 Court when she did not greet her victorious opponent Elina Svitolina at the net for the customary post-match niceties, instead opting to give a congratulatory acknowledgement to her Ukrainian opponent. Some ignorant onlookers assumed that Azarenka was sore at having lost to the Ukrainian. On closer inspection, however, it was obvious that she was merely honouring Svitolina's right to object to the role Belarus has played in the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and the war that has followed.
“She doesn't want to shake hands with Russian, Belarusian people,” the former WTA No. 1 told reporters. “I respected her decision. What should I have done?”
It posed an interesting question. You had to feel a degree of sympathy for Azarenka in this scenario. She has not been a vocal supporter of the Alexander Lukashenko regime. Last August, she pulled out of the Tennis Plays for Peace Exhibition aimed at raising humanitarian aid for Ukraine but that was because of the sensitivities involved with the Ukrainian players.
And, in March 2022, she wrote on social media: “I am devastated by the actions that have taken place over the last several days against and in Ukraine. It’s heartbreaking to see how many innocent people have been affected and continue to be affected by such violence. Since my early childhood, I have always seen and experienced Ukrainian and Belarusian people, as well as both nations, friendly and supportive of one another. It is hard to witness the violent separation that is currently taking place instead of supporting and finding compassion for each other. My heart is with everyone directly and indirectly impacted by this war that is causing such pain and suffering for so many. I hope and wish for peace and an end to the war.”
Azarenka has been in a no-win situation on this score. This was only likely to be heightened at this year's championships when organisers agreed to allow Russian and Belarusian competitors to feature despite a ban on their presence last year.
A Wimbledon fourth round match on No.1 court was a high-profile enough occasion for a borderline diplomatic incident to occur, it would have been even more visible had Svitolina progressed to tomorrow's women's final against – hypothetically speaking, of course – the Belarusian No.2 seed Aryna Sabalenka. Svitolina eventually crashed out to Marketa Vondrousova in yesterday's first women's semi-final and the potential for a tinderbox situation was extinguished when Ons Jabeur fought back from a set down to beat Sabalenka in the other last four match.
In the aftermath of her defeat by Vondrousova, Svitolina was asked: “How bad would it look, symbolically, if the Princess of Wales ends up giving the trophy to a Belarusian.” To which she replied: “I didn’t think about this at all. Right now, I’m not in a good state of mind to reply to this question.”
Svitolina broke down in tears soon after – but in any event the hypothetical did not come to pass which was good news for tournament organisers.
Yesterday, the Ukrainian ambassador to the UK – Vadym Prystaiko – walked out prior to the commencement of Sabalenka's semi-final. The Belarusian has been tight-lipped on the conflict but had previously attempted to address questions about the war at the French Open. She succeeded only in pouring more petrol on an already flammable situation when she said: “I don’t support war, which means I don’t support Lukashenko [the Belarus leader] right now.” Despite that apparent condemnation her attitude towards the conflict and choice of words were criticised then and have been since.
Last year, as he announced the ban for Russians and Belarusians at the 2022 championships, the Wimbledon chairman Ian Hewitt said: “Even if we were to accept entries from Russian and Belarusian players with written declarations, we would risk their success or participation at Wimbledon being used to benefit the propaganda machine of the Russian regime, which we could not accept.”
By a quirk of fate, Wimbledon organisers have been spared the potential embarrassment of that which they tried to avoid a year ago.
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