| Venue: Roland Garros, Paris Dates: 28 May-11 June |
| Coverage: Live text and radio commentaries of selected matches across BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra, the BBC Sport website and app |
Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina accused Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka of encouraging French Open fans to boo her by waiting at the net for a handshake following their tense quarter-final.
Svitolina has not shaken hands with Russian opponents since Ukraine was invaded with support from Belarus.
Before her loss to Sabalenka, Svitolina made clear she would again avoid it.
Asked if Sabalenka inflamed the boos with her actions, Svitolina said: “I think so, unfortunately.”
Sabalenka responded by saying her reaction was “an instinct”.
It was a sour end to 28-year-old Svitolina’s dream run at Roland Garros as Sabalenka, seeded second, kept focus to reach the semi-finals.
Svitolina, playing in her first Grand Slam since giving birth in October, lost 6-4 6-4 on the Paris clay.
“I don’t know what she was waiting for, because my statements were clear enough about the handshake,” Svitolina said.
On the booing, she added: “It was quite expected. Whoever in this situation loses, I guess gets booed. It was not a surprise for me.”
There was a tense atmosphere in a quarter-final between two women whose nations are on opposing sides of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Sabalenka, 25, underlined why she is one of the favourites for the title and will play Karolina Muchova in the last four.
The unseeded Czech reached her first French Open semi-final with a straight-set victory over former finalist Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
Sabalenka comes through tense match as Svitolina booed off
Svitolina’s run to the quarter-finals has been one of the eye-catching stories of this year’s tournament.
A former world number three, Svitolina is now ranked 192nd as she continues her return from having daughter Skai and surpassed her wildest expectations by reaching the last eight at her first Grand Slam event since.
That, along with the mental strain of the war back home in Ukraine, makes her achievements quite remarkable.
Even though Svitolina beat Russian ninth seed Daria Kasatkina in the previous round, taking on Australian Open champion Sabalenka – who could become the new world number one this week – was a different proposition.
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