Win or lose, Victoria Azarenka knew there would be no handshake offered by Ukrainian rival Elina Svitolina at the end of Sunday's Wimbledon contest that had been billed as the 'battle of the mums'.
What the Belarusian did not expect was to be booed off court after she had played her part in entertaining the Court One crowd for close to three hours in an exhilarating 2-6, 6-4, 7-6(9) contest that needed a third-set match tiebreak to decide the winner.
A puzzled Azarenka was left bemused and shaking her head as she struggled to understand why the crowd had suddenly turned hostile on her.
After stopping in her tracks to face the jeering fans, she banged both fists together above her head and departed the arena with the boos still ringing around her ears.
Calling the reaction "unfair", Azarenka did not want to make a big deal of it, realising that perhaps the crowd were not aware as to why she did not offer to shake hands with Svitolina at the end of the fourth round match.
Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, with Moscow using Belarus as a staging ground for what it calls a "special military operation", Svitolina has stuck to her stance of not shaking hands with players from both countries.
"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."
No matter how harshly she felt done by the crowd, she refused to blame Svitolina for her predicament.
"I know 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," said Azarenka, who turned up for her press conference hiding her eyes behind a pair of dark sunglasses.
"I haven't done anything wrong, but keep getting different treatment sometimes. She doesn't want to shake hands with Russian, Belarusian people. I respected her decision. What should I have done? Stayed and waited? 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. But this conversation about shaking hands is not a life-changing conversation."
While it seemed everyone was only focussing on the events that unfolded after Svitolina had sealed her place in the last eight with an ace, Azarenka felt the on-court duel deserved more plaudits.
"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," she said.
Svitolina thought such situations could be avoided if tournament organisers issued a statement to fans to make clear that "there will be no handshake between Russian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian players."
"Some people do not really know what is happening. So I think this is the right way to do," the Ukrainian said.
Tense encounter
Sunday's win handed the Ukrainian wildcard a first victory over Azarenka as she snapped a five-match losing run against the Belarusian.
After soaking up all the tension for close to three hours, world number 76 Svitolina finally toppled 19th seed Azarenka with an ace on her second match point and promptly collapsed onto her back in her moment of triumph. She will next face Poland's world number one Iga Swiatek for a place in the semi-finals.
"It's really a shame that one of these players had to lose. They left it all on the court," nine-time Wimbledon champion Martina Navratilova concluded while commentating. "In the end Svitolina played the braver tennis, particularly in the closing stages."
The Ukrainian summed up her achievement by saying: "After giving birth, this is the second happiest moment in my life."
Svitolina frustrated Azarenka for over 11 minutes in the fourth game of the match which dragged on for five deuces, with the Ukrainian missing a break point chance in the process.
Two games later the pair went toe-to-toe in a ferocious 25-shot baseline exchange that drew a chorus of 'oohs' and 'aahs' from the enthralled Court One crowd which only ended when Svitolina overcooked a forehand.
Even though the records will show the Belarusian romped through the first set by breaking twice, those in attendance will know that the scoreline failed to illustrate just how much drama was packed into those first 41 minutes of the contest.
Azarenka may have thought she was on the home stretch when she opened up a 2-0 lead in the second set but two games later Svitolina finally punched a hole through her opponent's rock solid serve to break for the first time.
With the bludgeoning blows flying off Svitolina's racket thick and fast, Azarenka had to rely on her nerves of steel to fend off four break points in the eighth game that ebbed and flowed for over 11 electrifying minutes.
All the while it appeared that Svitolina had locked in to win the set and, after letting out an anguished cry when she missed her first set point by misfiring into the sky, she brought the hollering crowd to their feet by finishing off a 26-stroke rally with a thunderous forehand winner.
Seconds later she had levelled the contest after Azarenka swiped a forehand long to surrender her serve.
Svitolina, who returned to the tour in April following the birth of her daughter Skai last October, appeared to be on a roll when she opened up a 3-0 lead in the third.
But Azarenka kept her eyes on the ball and watched it bounce on the net three times in the fifth game before it trickled to her side of the net and she tapped it over to break back.
With both players refusing to blink, the contest headed for a match tiebreak won by Svitolina, who could not hold back the tears as she gave her war-ravaged homeland something to cheer.
