Elina Svitolina: Why Did She Snub Aryna Sabalenka’s Simple Sporting Gesture at French Open Last Year?

The geopolitical tensions between Russia and Ukraine have put a significant strain on the global sporting scenario. Among the renowned athletic superstars not only voicing opinions but also taking sides is Elina Svitolina. The Ukrainian national, who has often spoken about the atrocities in her home country, refused to shake hands with Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka at last year’s French Open quarter-final. Even though it’s not a mandatory gesture, it earned Svitolina boos from the crowd and rage from the internet.

Post-game handshakes are an integral part of sports no doubt, but the moment is more followed in tennis than, say, the NFL or soccer. Last year, Svitolina was facing the second seed in the quarterfinals of that tournament. After dominating the Ukranian throughout the match, Sabalenka approached the net for a handshake after she won. However, instead of going to the net, Svitolina directly went to the chair umpire to shake hands and ignored Sabalenka. The latter took it sportingly and had a wry smile while looking at her team after the incident.

But as CNN reported after a similar contentious moment after Sabine Lisicki vs. Agnieszka Radwanska at the 2013 Wimbledon, “Tennis fans, journalists and even players will tell you they keep an eye on the handshake, especially when something contentious happens during the match.”

Longtime Canadian tennis journalist and broadcaster Tom Tebbutt expanded on it, “The handshake, and the walk up to the handshake, is an integral part of a tennis match. It’s the joy of victory and the agony of defeat, it’s all the emotions of the competitors summed up in a final ritual gesture. And we want to see it all – uninterrupted.”

In the aftermath of the 2023 incident, Svitolina defended and reasoned out her decision to not shake hands with Russian and Belarusian players. She said, “For me, it is very sad, and very frustrating that people don’t understand this. People need to understand that sometimes you can’t divide politics from sport. They are representing their countries and I am representing mine in front of the world. My position has to be clear.”

This is not the only time Svitolina refused to shake hands with her opponent. During the Wimbledon Championships, she didn’t shake hands with Victoria Azarenka, also of Belarusian origin.

Elina Svitolina and her handskae stance

After the French Open controversy, Svitolina went head-to-head against Victoria Azarenka in the fourth round of the Wimbledon Championships last year. However, on this occasion, she was on the victorious side. Nonetheless, she made her stance clear and refused to shake hands with Azarenka after the match.

In an emotional interview later, she said, “Everyone should fight on their own front,” she says. “Of course, the main front is our soldiers, and we try to support them with everything that we’ve got… with money…trying to help them to fight the enemy. Also, it is important to help them not lose their spirit. They still follow the sport, they read the news. For us, it’s our united decision to fight this war.”

History might repeat itself once again as Svitolina squares off with Belarusian star, Aryna Sabalenka, at the Italian Open. It remains to be seen if she keeps her stance firm on not shaking hands with players of Russian and Belarusian origin.