Once again, Vika Azarenka may not be blessed to have a proper handshake in her upcoming match against Elina Svitolina in Washington. Even if Vika has always professed her aversion to the current Russian invasion, Svitolina has denied her handshake with the Belarussian player during their recent match in Wimbledon. Ukrainian athletes have adopted the controversial decision not to shake hands with their opponents if they are from Russia or Belarus, even if they oppose the war.

Fortunately, Vika Azarenka was not denied a handshake from her lovely son Leo while having fun in Washington.

Here is the video.

About the missing handshakes

Talking about the decision of Ukrainian players not to have handshakes with players from Russia and Belarus, Vika Azarenka once commented:

“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.”

 

Victoria Azarenka in 2023

Currently the world no.19, Victoria played her last match on the 9^th of July when she lost to world no.27 Elina Svitolina 2-6 6-4 7-6(9)

in the 4^th round in Wimbledon (draw).

At the moment, during this season Azarenka has an overall 17-13 record. Victoria Azarenka’s best result of the present year was getting to the semifinal at the Australian Open.

She is also scheduled to play at the U.S. Open (U.S. Open)

after Montreal. The main draw will start on the 7th of August.

Elina Svitolina in 2023

Currently the world no.27, Svitolina played her last match on the 13^th of July when she was overcome by world no.10 Marketa Vondrousova 6-3 6-3 in the semifinal in Wimbledon (draw).

This year Elina has managed to achieve a 17-9 match record. Svitolina conquered 1 title in Strasbourg.

Victoria Azarenka and Elina Svitolina squared off 6 times. Their record is 5-1 for Azarenka. Previously, the last time they squared off, Elina Svitolina won 2-6 6-4 7-6(9) in the 4^th round in London (Wimbledon) on the 9^th of July 2023.

In the following video you can watch the key moments of their match.