"Love how Jelena Ostapenko does not like Elena Rybakina" - Tennis fans react to Latvian's cold handshake with World No.4 after 2R loss in Cincinnati
Jelena Ostapenko's allegedly cold handshake with Elena Rybakina after her loss at the 2023 Cincinnati Open was the talk of the tennis world on Wednesday, with several fans calling for more professionalism and grace by players at WTA events.
Elena Rybakina took on Jelena Ostapenko in the second round of the Cincinnati Open and clinched a 6-7(6), 6-2, 6-4 victory in two hours and 17 minutes. Rybakina had also beaten Ostapenko at the Australian Open and the Italian Open earlier this year.
Tensions ran high in the Cincinnati Open match as Ostapenko clinched the opening set by a whisker in the tiebreak. Rybakina, however, managed to claim the second set by breaking the 2017 French Open champion twice.
In the deciding set, the Kazakh served for the match at 5-4 and eventually triumphed after a faulty return by Ostapenko.
Following the high-octane fixture, Ostapenko and Rybakina went in for a handshake, as is customary after a match, but the gesture looked less than warm.
Several tennis fans took to Twitter to share their opinions on the players' demeanor after the match ended. One of them emphasized the need to be gracious at the end of matches and claimed that cold handshakes by female athletes are all too common in the sport.
"I understand being disappointed but these unprofessional drive-by handshakes by the women are tiresome and too common. They need to learn to be gracious at the net," the fan tweeted.
Another fan jokingly opined that Ostapenko does not particularly like the quiet Rybakina.
"Love how (randomly) Ostapenko does not like Rybakina. Not sure what's to dislike about the quiet Kazakh but Jelena has found it," another fan wrote.
Another tennis fan enjoyed the action that unfolded at the Cincinnati Open. They enlisted Elena Rybakina's sister Anna's passionate reactions and the cold handshake at the end as the reasons he loved the WTA event.
"Rybakina's sister reaction. Ostapenko's (usual) poor handshake. Gotta LOVE the WTA," the fan tweeted.
Here are a few more reactions from fans:
"I picked up some injuries, but we tried to manage it" - Elena Rybakina talks about the gruelling schedule
At last week's Canadian Open, Elena Rybakina vocally expressed her frustration with the poor scheduling of the tournament. The 2022 Wimbledon champion played a three-and-a-half-hour-long quarterfinal match against Daria Kasatkina that concluded just minutes shy of 3 a.m.
Adding insult to injury, Rybakina's semifinal match against Liudmila Samsonova was played on the same day as the final due to numerous rain delays.
“I feel destroyed just because of the scheduling and the whole situation. I'm not really happy about it,” the World No. 4 said in her press conference. “I picked up some injuries I would say, but we tried to manage it.”
The Kazakh added that the issue was even more concerning with the Cincinnati Open and the US Open lined up.
“The worst thing is that it's not about this tournament. It's going to be not easy to recover for the next two weeks,” she said.