A Wimbledon,
Defeated in the round of 16 at the end of the suspense by the Ukrainian Elina Zvitolina after a suffocating super tie-break, the Belarusian Victoria Azarenka collected stupid whistles when she left the court. Asked at a press conference, the double Grand Slam winner did not hide her annoyance: “I can’t control the crowd. I’m not sure a lot of people understood what was going on, so… There were probably a lot of Pimm’s (Wimbledon booze) that were drunk throughout the day. what can I do?” Asked about the late-game incident, Azarenka clarified in the face of insistent press: “Victim of someone not shaking my hand? You are welcome. I feel like it’s been the same for 18 or 19 months. I haven’t done anything wrong, but sometimes I’m treated differently. She does not want to shake hands with Russians and Belarusians. I respected his decision. What should I have done? Stay and wait? There’s nothing I could do that would have been right, so I just did what I thought was respectful of his decision.” Before, to relativize and estimate: “I think we have more important things to talk about. So if you want to keep talking about it, making a fuss about it, making headlines, whatever, keep going! I thought it was a nice tennis match. If people are only interested in the handshakes or the crowd, quite drunk, who booed at the end, that’s too bad. It was a tennis match. We are here to talk about a tennis match.”
