At the Monterrey Open, Elina Svitolina was harshly criticized for refusing to shake hands with Elina Avanesyan. The 29-year-old Ukrainian Svitolina defeated the Russian Avanesyan in straight sets 6-4, 6-3 in the Round of 16.
No handshakes for Belarus and Russian players
After winning, Svitolina declined to follow the custom of shaking hands with her opponent and instead shook hands with the umpire before going back to her seat. Since the Ukraine-Russia war began in February 2022, Svitolina—who is married to fellow tennis great Gael Monfils—has declined to shake hands with players from Belarus and Russia.
The reason for the uproar over the refusal to shake hands is that Avanesyan is now representing Armenia instead of her birthplace. Netizens reacted negatively to Svitolina’s “disrespectful” behaviour. In a social media post, one netizen stated: “absolutely disgusting from svitolina refusing to shake hands with avanesyan, who changed her citizenship into armenian” .
absolutely disgusting from svitolina refusing to shake hands with avanesyan, who changed her citizenship into armenian pic.twitter.com/prFs2mkr4x
— carlos (@tsitsichard) August 22, 2024
The post received comments from other people who wrote: “It’s just petulant because it achieves nothing except negative headlines”, “She should get banned for bad sportsmanship”, and “can someone do it to her she act so entitled.”
Svitolina also made headlines last year when she declined to shake hands with Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka, who defeated the Ukrainian in the French Open quarterfinal.
Source: Express