Victoria Azarenka was booed off the court at Wimbledon on Sunday after her loss to Elina Svitolina.

The boos seemed to stem from Azarenka, who is from Belarus, not shaking with Svitolina, who is Ukrainian.

However, what the crowd didn’t appear to realize was that Svitolina had said publicly that she would not shake hands with players from Russia or Belarus over the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. 

Both players after the match pointed to the crowd misunderstanding the situation, though Svitolina said she thought the crowd would have reacted the same way if she had lost the match on Sunday.

“What can I say about the crowd,” Azarenka said, according to ESPN. “There is nothing to say. 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.”

Azarenka did wave toward Svitolina after the match and said that she was following her opponent’s lead over the handshake. 

Why would the Wimbledon crowd boo Victoria Azarenka? It makes no sense. It was Svitolina who has unilaterally decided not to shake hands with certain players. I feel sorry for @vika7 ! pic.twitter.com/zPWWqkwOiM

— दिविर जैन (@divirj04) July 9, 2023

She also pointed to alcohol playing a factor in the reception she received at the end and again said that people weren’t aware of Svitolina’s stance on the issue. 

Azarenka gestured to the crowd as she came off the court by clenching her fists and banging them together. 

“I don’t know,” she said about it. “I have no idea. I won’t even be able to duplicate what I did.”

She also received a negative reaction when she didn’t shake hands in the French Open and hoped that tennis organizations would do a better job educating fans about why she wasn’t shaking hands with Russian and Belarusian players. 

“I think the tennis organizations, they have to come out with a statement that there will be no handshake between Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian players,” Svitolina said. “I don’t know if it’s maybe not clear for people. Some people not really know what is happening. So I think this is the right way to do [it].”

Svitolina defeated Azarenka 2-6 6-4 7-6 (11-9) in the round of 16. 

Svitolina called the win on Sunday “the second-happiest moment in my life,” according to Sky News.