Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine said it would not have been “the right thing” to shake hands with Victoria Azarenka after concluding her 6-2, 6-3 defeat to the Belarusian with a perfunctory racket tap.
Kostyuk, who earlier this year called for a ban on Russian and Belarusian players unwilling to denounce the Putin regime’s invasion of Ukraine, which is supported by Belarus, said she had warned the former world No 1 of her intentions in a text message.
“I just don’t think it’s the right thing to do in the circumstances I’m in right now,” said Kostyuk, the world No 65.
“It was just my choice. I don’t know any single person who condemned the war publicly and the actions of their government, so I don’t feel like I can support this. We had a great match, don’t get me wrong. She’s a great competitor, I respect her as an athlete, but that has nothing to do with her as a human being.”
Azarenka, who played down the significance of the frosty conclusion to her first meeting with Kostyuk, declined to elaborate on her feelings about the incident.
“I don’t believe that making a big deal out of it is important,” said the two-time Australian Open champion. “I always shake hands with my opponents. I had the same situation with [Daria] Yastremska in Washington. It is what it is. I just move on. I cannot force anybody to shake my hand. It’s their decision.
“How did it make me feel? It’s not the most important thing in the world right now.”
Since war broke out in February, Kostyuk has repeatedly expressed her disappointment over the failure of Russian and Belarusian players to speak out. She reiterated her view that high-profile contemporaries such as Azarenka should be using their profile to denounce the Russian offensive.
“Some of them have such big fanbases, they have people supporting and looking out for them from all over the world,” said Kostyuk, 20. “Having the fanbase that they have, [they] don’t use it in the right way, and to spread the good message: that they don’t support the murders, the rapes, the genocide that is happening.”
Kostyuk’s comments came barely a week after she took aim at Azarenka over her planned participation in the US Open’s Tennis Plays for Peace exhibition event, which raised $1.2m for humanitarian relief efforts in Ukraine. In the face of opposition from Ukrainian players – not least Kostyuk, who declined her invitation to play on learning of the Belarusian’s inclusion – the United States Tennis Association announced on the day of the event that Azarenka would not be involved.
“Everyone’s trying to be super democratic about this,” said Kostyuk. “My nation is being killed daily. Imagine there is world war II and there is a fundraiser for Jewish people, and a German player wants to play – during the war, not 70 years after the war. I don’t think Jewish people would understand.”
Azarenka rebuffed a suggestion from Kostyuk that her role on the WTA player council made it incumbent on her to speak out about the war – “with all due respect, I don’t think she has any idea of what I do on the player council, because she’s not there,” said the 33-year-old – and insisted she was “open any time to listen, to try to understand, to sympathise”. The Belarusian added that her desire to support the Ukraine fundraiser was “a no-brainer for me”.
“Why wouldn’t I participate in a humanitarian aid [event] for people who are really struggling right now?” said Azarenka. “It’s not even a thought for me at that moment.
“I thought that [participating] was a gesture that really shows commitment. I’m not sure why it wasn’t taken it that way. I don’t want to judge that, that’s what happened.
“I make steps towards help, towards listening, and if it’s not received, again, it’s a simple thing. I can’t force it. I’m not going to go and say, ‘Oh, how dare you?’ It’s not my place. My place is to be there to offer, offer my help, and that’s it.”
Iga Swiatek, the world No 1, suggested that a lack of leadership on the part of the game’s governing bodies in the early days of the war had made strained relations inevitable.
“I think the best time for the ATP or the WTA to do anything was when the war started, and where the tension was pretty big in the locker rooms,” said Swiatek, who continued her serene progress through the top half of the draw with an impressive 6-3, 6-2 victory over former US Open champion Sloane Stephens.
“Maybe next time it’s going to be easier for us to handle it if somebody is going to guide us and somebody is going to, I don’t know, even arrange some meetings between players and show that we should be united.
“Even though there are countries who are invading other countries, we are tennis players. It’s sad, but it’s not our fault that it’s happening. I think it would be much, much easier at the beginning to do that. Right now, it’s kind of too late, I think, to fix that.”
Elsewhere in the women’s draw, Aryna Sabalenka almost left it too late to fix things against Kaia Kanepi of Estonia before staging a remarkable recovery from a set and 5-1 down. Sabalenka, a semi-finalist at Flushing Meadows last year, saved two match points in the second-set tiebreak – one with the help of a net cord – to advance 2-6, 7-6 (10-8), 6-4.
There was no such luck for Spanish fourth seed Paula Badosa, however, who was beaten 6-7 (5-7), 6-1, 6-2 by Petra Martic. Azarenka awaits the Croatian in round three.