Smart Rune, Sabalenka and Svitolina no handshake – Corriere.it

Aryna Sabalenka, n.2 in the world, Belarusian from Minsk, flagship of President Lukashenko, sweeps away from the central Elina Svitolina, Ukrainian, new mother, tough girl, someone who – in times of war – considers not shaking hands with her enemies (Russian and Belarusian) as her personal form of protest. Sabalenka knows it, but she is waiting for Svitolina at the net. In vain. The whistles from the station start, Elina doesn’t agree: hers was a provocation, she knows exactly how I think. What did she expect?.

a rude Roland Garros from the startwhich forbids Zverev from injecting himself with insulin in public (diabetic), wild buuu on the players (Fritz treated as a criminal for having eliminated Rinderknech, the last French player on the draw), politics slips in everywhere and forces Sabalenka, a loyalist of the regime , to an act of forced dissidence (I’m against the war she says; so also to Lukashenko, they ask her? I don’t support Lukashenko’s war), the public no longer knows how to cheer: if we were at the Foro Italico, instead of at the Bois de Boulogne, we would baste sociological treatises on the lame generone, here they drown everything in the Moet, pace De Coubertin, who was born on the rive gauche and is now turning over in his grave. Japan’s Kato inadvertently hits a ball girl in doubles, an involuntary gesture but the opponents (Sorribes Tormo and Bouzkova) incite the judge: Disqualify her. The other howls. This year there is no water coming down, it’s raining whistles.

And then there’s him, Holger Rune, the new man of world tennis, No. 6 destined to break down the penthouse door of the top 5 by the end of the tournament, just 20 years old, the Danish prince with the little voice of a child who inherited the vengeful spirit of Hamlet. Holger argues that his fame as a bad boy is the fault of the judges and a wrong narrative: I’m not bad, it’s the others who draw me like this. For the double bounce of the ball with which he gets the point against the Argentine Cerundolo in the round of 16 (one who stood out at the US Open last year for admitting the same tennis offense against Murray), he cries out for revenge. It’s impossible for a player not to notice: Then I saw him again on TV, these things happen, the referees are wrong: sometimes in my favour, sometimes against…, smiles the sly. No, Holgerino, it’s not like this that you should have commented on a forbidden gesture, vivisected in slow motion and criticized on social media, another step in the process of identification with Jimmy Connors, incorrect (remember, Barazzutti?), ugly and mean. Tonight he’s back on the pitch against the Norwegian Ruud in the Great North derby, last year there were sparks, with a tail of unpleasantness in the locker room (Ruud won and then reached the final with Nadal, but within a year the values ​​seem to be overturned, in fact Rune won in Rome). This time we will try to be less dramatic jokes the unpunished.

Ecumenical boos for everyone, Paris is well worth a fight. Djokovic against Davidovich asks for a doctor’s intervention and ends up in bedlam, to which he responds with ironic applause. Djoker returned the darling of the crowd yesterday, beating the Russian Khachanov in four sets: 12th semifinal of Roland Garros, two matches from the absolute Slam record (23). Applause.