Sabalenka Advances at Indian Wells After Ukrainian Tsurenko Weirdly Withdraws Last-Minute
WTA
Fans in Indian Wells were certainly excited about the match between Aryna Sabalenka and Lesia Tsurenko, but it ultimately didn't happen, and the circumstances were weird.
Both players made it to the third round at the WTA 1000 event in Indian Wells. As the second seed, Sabalenka didn't have to play her first-round match, and in the second round, she bested Evgeniya Rodina.
Tsurenko, on the other hand, first beat Lin Zhu, and then she also stunned the 29th-seeded Donna Vekic. The ending of that match, however, was a bit weird. Vekic refused to shake Tsurenko's hand after the match, but it wasn't really clear why.
The handshake wasn't expected in this match either, as Tsurenko is Ukrainian, and players from that country stopped shaking hands with their rivals from Russia or Belarus.
And it might be Sabalenka's nationality that might have caused an issue ahead of this third-round meeting. It seemed that the match would be played as planned, but suddenly, Tsurenko announced her withdrawal, only a couple of minutes before the match started.
The Ukrainian player didn't provide any statement, but her withdrawal was surrounded by very weird circumstances, and Tsurenko will certainly be asked about her reasoning in the coming days.
At the same time, it's not rare for her to withdraw from events. In her past 15 tournaments, the Ukrainian withdrew or retired a total of eight times.
On the same day as Tsurenko withdrew from the clash against the second-seeded Belarusian, Indian Wells faced another controversy as Russian Anastasia Potapova walked on the court in Spartak Moscow's jersey.
Sabalenka probably won't focus on the withdrawal too much, and she will start preparing for her upcoming match against the 16th-seeded Barbora Krejcikova in the next round and possibly rising star Coco Gauff if she advances to the quarter-finals.
