‘Drunk on Pimm’s’: Wimbledon crowd cops a serve in Azarenka loss

afr.com:

Belarusian tennis star Victoria Azarenka accused the Wimbledon crowd of being drunk on Pimm’s after she was booed off the No.1 court as Vladimir Putin’s war spilled out into this most refined of sporting venues.

An angry Azarenka stopped as she left the court and eyeballed the crowd for a second. Then she shook her head, smiled bitterly and made a gesture with both arms, slapping her wrists together in a manner that Europeans sometimes use to mean “up yours”.

Azarenka had just been defeated by Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina in the first such politically charged match of the tournament. And the reception Svitolina received was staggering – perhaps even louder than a British icon such as Andy Murray might have expected after a tight win.

Victoria Azarenka of Belarus leaves the court after being defeated by Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina on Sunday. AP

When asked about the reaction of the crowd Azarrenka replied: “What do you think? What do you think, how was the crowd?”

When the interviewer replied it was unfair she added: “I think we agree on that.”

“I’ve known Elina for a very long time. I’ve always had a good relationship with her. And the circumstances, it is what it is, and that’s it. I can’t control the crowd. I’m not sure that a lot of people were understanding what’s happening, so it’s probably been a lot of Pimm’s throughout the day.

“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 nothing that I could do that would have been right, so I just did what I thought was respectful towards her decision.

“If people are going to be focusing only on handshakes or crowd, quite drunk crowd, booing in the end, that’s a shame.