Despite giving her all, Victoria Azarenka booed off court after Wimbledon loss to Elina Svitolina

Victoria Azarenka missed out on a Wimbledon quarterfinal berth by the narrowest of margins Sunday. The former world No. 1 went down to the wire against Elina Svitolina, coming up just short when the wild card prevailed, 2-6, 6-4, 7-6 (11-9).

The two treated the No. 1 Court ticket holders to an enthralling battle, but after pouring her heart out for two hours and 46 minutes, Azarenka left with a bitter taste in her mouth.

Svitolina has long made it clear she won’t shake hands with opponents representing Russia and Belarus—a response she's taken since her native Ukraine was invaded by Russia in February 2022 and supported by Belarus shortly after a war broke out. Sunday’s audience seemingly wasn’t educated on the matter, as Azarenka’s nod following the conclusion was supplanted by boos when she went to exit ahead of her opponent’s on-court interview.

“I can't control the crowd. I'm not sure that a lot of people were understanding what's happening,” she said in press. “It's probably been a lot of pimps—Pimm's throughout the day.

“But what can I say about the crowd? 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.”

One could understand Azarenka’s displeasure with the way her time at the event ended. She served from behind the entire third set, and when she was two points from defeat, dug in to force what would prove to be one memorable decisive tiebreaker for fans to soak up while the sun began setting.

“I thought it was a great tennis match. If people are going to be focusing only on handshakes or crowd, quite drunk crowd, booing in the end, that's a shame,” said Azarenka, who shook her head and gestured with her hands as she walked off. “That's probably what it is in the end of the day.”

The No. 19 seed was a semifinalist at this year’s Australian Open.