Wimbledon chief shoots down Victoria Azarenka and warns Russians of extra booing

Jul 10, 2023 at 11:59 AM

Wimbledon have claimed they can not “control the crowds” after Belarusian Victoria Azarenka was booed after her defeat to Ukrainian Elina Svitolina.

But All England Club chief government Sally Bolton insisted extreme consuming was not the reason for the gang hostility on Court 1.

Former world No.1 Azarenka was shocked by the vehemence of the gang after she acknowledged Svitolina however didn’t try to shake fingers. The Ukrainian refuses to shake fingers with any Russian or Belarusian gamers because the invasion of her nation.

But Bolton, who mentioned handshakes have been a “personal decision” for gamers, mentioned: “We aren’t in a position where we can control the crowds here at Wimbledon. We traditionally have a hugely respectful crowd here and I expect that we will continue to see that as we head into the rest of the tournament.

“I think I would echo what Elina and Vika said last night: having witnessed one of the most incredible matches on No 1 Court to an absolutely rapt audience, we should be focusing on the tennis and the match that we saw, not all of the other stuff that went on.”

Azarenka claims the gang was “quite drunk” and added: “It’s probably been a lot of Pimm’s throughout the day.”

But Bolton responded: “That’s not an issue that we recognise. What I would say is what we all saw in that match was an extremely high intensity well-matched contest that had the crowd absolutely on the edge of their seats. So the atmosphere in there was incredible. And that was driven by the quality of what they were seeing on the court.”

An umpire on Court 2 needed to advise spectators to not open champagne bottles whereas gamers have been serving in the beginning of Mirra Andreeva’s match on Court 2 yesterday. It was described as “the most Wimbledon warning ever” by TV commentators.

Bolton mentioned: “The umpire handled that very well and we would expect umpires as fantastic professionals on court to manage those incidents. It’s a pretty isolated incident.”