Victoria Azarenka is a prolific tennis player and a former world number 1. During her recent appearance at Wimbledon, things got awkward for the player and others present during the post-match interview. After her victory against Yuan Yue, she was asked a rather ridiculous question by a British reporter.
The reporter had frivolously asked her how Wimbledon was perceived in Russia. Azarenka was taken aback and blurted out, “You know I am not Russian right?” Instead of owning up to his mistake, the journalist doubled down on his stupidity. When Victoria asked for clarification, he blabbered incoherently through the question.
This idiot British reporter at Wimbledon thought former world #1 Belarusian Victoria Azarenka was from Russia. Rather than admit it, he started babbling incoherently because she never takes bullshit from them.
Tennis reporters have produced so many cringe moments doing this. pic.twitter.com/AVyTEQSW9J
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 7, 2023
Ever the gracious sportswoman, Azarenka replied, “Wimbledon is undoubtedly one of the biggest tennis events, it always has been and it is one of the oldest in history. It’s iconic. I don’t know how it is in Russia. I’m not from Russia, so I don’t know how it feels there.”
Here’s how people reacted to the incident.
can he show his face again?
— bruce ryan (@brucery29217561) July 7, 2023
The @bbc continues to embarrass us Brits 🇬🇧 on the world stage. https://t.co/XW5jXKgaJT pic.twitter.com/r9QGMB1D81
— Mike (@MikeSouthWestUK) July 8, 2023
And the award for the most embarrassingly inept performance by an alleged journalist at a major sporting event goes to…… https://t.co/te1b5T7HnF
— Ian Rids 😎 (@rids42) July 8, 2023
It gets even worse! 🤦🏽♂️
What checks are you actually doing @Wimbledon to give accreditations to fools like this that clearly don’t have a clue about Tennis, but seem to very competent in virtue signalling? https://t.co/deKHQZzOeN
— Pavvy G (@pavyg) July 7, 2023
This blunder hasn’t sat well with fans of the game. Wimbledon and the reporters covering the games have been criticized severely.
Is Victoria Azarenka really Russian?
Victoria Azarenka is a Belarussian player. She has had a long and illustrious career, winning 21 WTA singles titles, including 2 Grand Slams. She won the Australian Open in 2012 and 2013, which made her the first-ever Belarussian athlete, male or female, to win a Grand Slam.
In addition to the Grand Slams, She has an Olympic Bronze in singles and a Gold Medal in mixed doubles, both of which she won in the London Olympics of 2012. Additionally, the Belarussian star also has 2 Grand Slams in doubles.
vAzarenka’s incident is not the only one that happened at Wimbledon this year. Many journalists have failed miserably in doing their job properly by uttering false information and asking irrelevant questions.
Paula Badosa had to tell this journalist that she lost her match 3 times
“Congratulations on your win”
Paula: “I lost”
“Can you please tell me about your confidence level & fitness”
Paula: “For your information, I just lost. I didn’t win.”
Oh boy 😂
— The Tennis Letter (@TheTennisLetter) July 7, 2023
Journalists at Wimbledon made another faux pas recently after Paula Badosa lost her second-round match. Fans are rightfully unhappy with the level of journalism at the tournament this year.