Tennis features a fiendish scoring system and at-times ambiguous rules. It feels designed to cause irritation and aggravation like few other sports.
The handshake at the end of a match is its apex. Two elite athletes who have spent the previous few hours on a rectangular battlefield with tensions gradually ratcheting up are then provided with the perfect incubator for all of those simmering resentments, in the name of politely saying "well done."
Wednesday at the U.S. Open, Jelena Ostapenko, the tennis player most synonymous with fractious handshakes, furiously confronted Taylor Townsend at the end of their second-round match. Ostapenko, who had just been beaten, 7-5, 6-1, told Townsend she should have apologized for a shot that clipped the top of the net but stayed in play, known as a net cord.
Townsend said she did not have to apologize before Ostapenko appeared to repeat the phrase "you have no education" three times. Townsend walked away, shook hands with the chair umpire and asked the crowd to make some noise for her win.
Ostapenko's behavior with Townsend went far beyond her usual handshake protocol, which had until Wednesday become a harmless meme in the tennis world. Eight years ago at this venue, Ostapenko -- at the time the French Open champion -- introduced herself to the U.S. Open crowd by pointedly looking away from Daria Kasatkina when they shook hands at the end of their second-round match.
"Notice the frost on the fingers," broadcaster and former player Mary Carillo quipped on the Tennis Channel.
Despite being an outlier, the handshake altercation Wednesday exposed the theater of politeness at the heart of one of tennis's fundamental traditions. After engaging in the sporting equivalent of hand-to-hand combat, players show respect to each other for their endeavors. They also put aside any emotions they are feeling in a moment of artificial grace broadcast to the world. An important moment of respect between competitors has morphed into a moment analyzed almost as much as any tennis match, with the coldness of the exchange monitored and any possibility for drama teased out.
At the start of 2024, Ostapenko lost to two-time Grand Slam champion Victoria Azarenka of Belarus three times in seven weeks. The first two post-match handshakes were no-look, while on the third occasion, Ostapenko held out her racket rather than her hand, prompting an eye roll from her opponent.
"I can't speak for how she feels and why she does it," Azarenka said at the time. "Some of her line callings, I mean, it can be a bit comical that's just how she is. I don't necessarily judge. I'm just there to play a match."
At the time of the Azarenka triptych, Ostapenko's frostiness appeared partly geopolitical. Ostapenko has Ukrainian family and, at the time, had a Ukrainian doubles partner; Belarus is a supporter of Russia and its ongoing war in Ukraine.
No sport pits Russian and Belarusian athletes against Ukrainians and their allies as regularly as tennis, and no other sport has a designated moment of coming together like tennis does. After the invasion in February 2022, players from the warring nations stopped shaking each other's hands. Fans booed players who refused to shake hands because of this gap, before they slowly became acquainted with what was going on. That policy continues to this day.
"There is a reason behind it," Ostapenko said of her snubs of Azarenka in an interview last May, before demurring to elaborate on those reasons and evading a direct question about whether it related to Ukraine.
The Russia-Ukraine situation underscores the quandary at the heart of the handshake. It is on one level a cursory gesture; on another, it is freighted with meaning beyond the scope of two tennis players saying "good match" to each other.
While Ostapenko may be the face -- or palm -- of the handshake's cultural relevance in tennis, the idiosyncrasies go beyond one player.
This year has had a steady stream of handshake controversies, most of them in the usual realm of disputes: gloriously petty. Yulia Putintseva, also known for her at-times tense nature on the court, was involved in a scrap with Maria Sakkari in June after losing to the Greek player at the Bad Homburg Open in Germany. Sakkari took exception to Putintseva's no-look handshake and said during their subsequent exchange, "Nobody likes you."
On the men's side, Alexander Zverev could barely look at rising French star Arthur Fils after the Hamburg Open final. Zverev, who lost the match, said at the Australian Open: "I think Hamburg, against Arthur, the handshake wasn't great from my side. I didn't like some of the things that, yeah, happened in the match."
A couple of months later, Fils and Stefanos Tsitsipas had a testy handshake after an incident in which Tsitsipas smashed a passing shot at Fils' body from close range -- a legal tactic, but frowned upon. A common denominator in these confrontations is the way in which a small incident can build up in players' minds over the course of a match before spilling over at the handshake, often inflated far beyond its actual significance.
At the Madrid Open in April, there was the odd sight of Damir Dzhumur going to shake Mattia Belucci's hand, Belucci refusing it then going back in for the handshake, which was in turn refused by Dzhumur.
"When he moved his hand, there is no way I would give you another hand because I'm not a fool," Dzhumur said in an interview afterward.
Some players simply refuse to follow the forced niceties of handshake convention. Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen, who is missing the U.S. Open with an injury, has developed a reputation for unfriendly handshakes but is straightforward about why.
"If I lost, I will give you just a basic respect and that's it," she said at a news conference in January. "That's why you will not see me lose one match with a happy face to the opponent." She added, with a laugh: "If you saw that on me, that is very strange, which means I don't care about that match on that day."
This is another of the fundamentals of the handshake: It is an accord of respect that has been pushed beyond its basic requirement of acknowledging that a tennis match has taken place. Zheng even forgot to shake hands with Aryna Sabalenka at the WTA Tour Finals in November, something Tsitsipas also did after beating Jan-Lennard Struff at the Madrid Open in April.
Daniil Medvedev, himself no stranger to controversy, including being given a $42,500 fine this week for his antics against Benjamin Bonzi on Sunday, said in January that he thinks tennis players should be "a bit more open" to cold handshakes.
"I can understand some people when they lose, you're frustrated, you don't want to smile at your opponent that just beat you."
For Townsend, the Ostapenko incident plays out along a binary of its own. It was disrespectful and unpleasant. But it was also something, she said, that she could put on her TikTok and leave in the past.
The spectacle of the handshake, this piece of tennis stagecraft that distills hours of intense competition into two hands clasped together, is likely to endure far longer.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
The handshake at the end of a match is its apex. Two elite athletes who have spent the previous few hours on a rectangular battlefield with tensions gradually ratcheting up are then provided with the perfect incubator for all of those simmering resentments, in the name of politely saying "well done."
Wednesday at the U.S. Open, Jelena Ostapenko, the tennis player most synonymous with fractious handshakes, furiously confronted Taylor Townsend at the end of their second-round match. Ostapenko, who had just been beaten, 7-5, 6-1, told Townsend she should have apologized for a shot that clipped the top of the net but stayed in play, known as a net cord.
Townsend said she did not have to apologize before Ostapenko appeared to repeat the phrase "you have no education" three times. Townsend walked away, shook hands with the chair umpire and asked the crowd to make some noise for her win.
Ostapenko's behavior with Townsend went far beyond her usual handshake protocol, which had until Wednesday become a harmless meme in the tennis world. Eight years ago at this venue, Ostapenko -- at the time the French Open champion -- introduced herself to the U.S. Open crowd by pointedly looking away from Daria Kasatkina when they shook hands at the end of their second-round match.
"Notice the frost on the fingers," broadcaster and former player Mary Carillo quipped on the Tennis Channel.
Despite being an outlier, the handshake altercation Wednesday exposed the theater of politeness at the heart of one of tennis's fundamental traditions. After engaging in the sporting equivalent of hand-to-hand combat, players show respect to each other for their endeavors. They also put aside any emotions they are feeling in a moment of artificial grace broadcast to the world. An important moment of respect between competitors has morphed into a moment analyzed almost as much as any tennis match, with the coldness of the exchange monitored and any possibility for drama teased out.
At the start of 2024, Ostapenko lost to two-time Grand Slam champion Victoria Azarenka of Belarus three times in seven weeks. The first two post-match handshakes were no-look, while on the third occasion, Ostapenko held out her racket rather than her hand, prompting an eye roll from her opponent.
"I can't speak for how she feels and why she does it," Azarenka said at the time. "Some of her line callings, I mean, it can be a bit comical that's just how she is. I don't necessarily judge. I'm just there to play a match."
At the time of the Azarenka triptych, Ostapenko's frostiness appeared partly geopolitical. Ostapenko has Ukrainian family and, at the time, had a Ukrainian doubles partner; Belarus is a supporter of Russia and its ongoing war in Ukraine.
No sport pits Russian and Belarusian athletes against Ukrainians and their allies as regularly as tennis, and no other sport has a designated moment of coming together like tennis does. After the invasion in February 2022, players from the warring nations stopped shaking each other's hands. Fans booed players who refused to shake hands because of this gap, before they slowly became acquainted with what was going on. That policy continues to this day.
"There is a reason behind it," Ostapenko said of her snubs of Azarenka in an interview last May, before demurring to elaborate on those reasons and evading a direct question about whether it related to Ukraine.
The Russia-Ukraine situation underscores the quandary at the heart of the handshake. It is on one level a cursory gesture; on another, it is freighted with meaning beyond the scope of two tennis players saying "good match" to each other.
While Ostapenko may be the face -- or palm -- of the handshake's cultural relevance in tennis, the idiosyncrasies go beyond one player.
This year has had a steady stream of handshake controversies, most of them in the usual realm of disputes: gloriously petty. Yulia Putintseva, also known for her at-times tense nature on the court, was involved in a scrap with Maria Sakkari in June after losing to the Greek player at the Bad Homburg Open in Germany. Sakkari took exception to Putintseva's no-look handshake and said during their subsequent exchange, "Nobody likes you."
On the men's side, Alexander Zverev could barely look at rising French star Arthur Fils after the Hamburg Open final. Zverev, who lost the match, said at the Australian Open: "I think Hamburg, against Arthur, the handshake wasn't great from my side. I didn't like some of the things that, yeah, happened in the match."
A couple of months later, Fils and Stefanos Tsitsipas had a testy handshake after an incident in which Tsitsipas smashed a passing shot at Fils' body from close range -- a legal tactic, but frowned upon. A common denominator in these confrontations is the way in which a small incident can build up in players' minds over the course of a match before spilling over at the handshake, often inflated far beyond its actual significance.
At the Madrid Open in April, there was the odd sight of Damir Dzhumur going to shake Mattia Belucci's hand, Belucci refusing it then going back in for the handshake, which was in turn refused by Dzhumur.
"When he moved his hand, there is no way I would give you another hand because I'm not a fool," Dzhumur said in an interview afterward.
Some players simply refuse to follow the forced niceties of handshake convention. Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen, who is missing the U.S. Open with an injury, has developed a reputation for unfriendly handshakes but is straightforward about why.
"If I lost, I will give you just a basic respect and that's it," she said at a news conference in January. "That's why you will not see me lose one match with a happy face to the opponent." She added, with a laugh: "If you saw that on me, that is very strange, which means I don't care about that match on that day."
This is another of the fundamentals of the handshake: It is an accord of respect that has been pushed beyond its basic requirement of acknowledging that a tennis match has taken place. Zheng even forgot to shake hands with Aryna Sabalenka at the WTA Tour Finals in November, something Tsitsipas also did after beating Jan-Lennard Struff at the Madrid Open in April.
Daniil Medvedev, himself no stranger to controversy, including being given a $42,500 fine this week for his antics against Benjamin Bonzi on Sunday, said in January that he thinks tennis players should be "a bit more open" to cold handshakes.
"I can understand some people when they lose, you're frustrated, you don't want to smile at your opponent that just beat you."
For Townsend, the Ostapenko incident plays out along a binary of its own. It was disrespectful and unpleasant. But it was also something, she said, that she could put on her TikTok and leave in the past.
The spectacle of the handshake, this piece of tennis stagecraft that distills hours of intense competition into two hands clasped together, is likely to endure far longer.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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