Harry Styles Tells Elina Svitolina She Is Welcome at Any Show After She Missed His Concert for Wimbledon
Making it to the quarterfinals at Wimbledon is exciting, but seeing Harry Styles in concert is a close second.
Ukrainian tennis player Elina Svitolina took to Instagram Sunday to reveal that she had to give up her tickets to Styles’ Saturday gig in Vienna, Austria because she continued to rack up wins at Wimbledon. In an Instagram post, which was reshared on Wimbledon’s official account, she offered up her tickets as she expressed her sadness at missing the show.
The 28-year-old wrote: “Hey guys!! I was supposed to go see my fav Harry Styles concert in Vienna tomorrow… But Wimbledon changed my plans. Someone want to go? I have two tickets.”
She made another post earlier that day saying, “Missing @harrystyles concert 🥲 but well.. it’s ok I guess🤷🏼♀️😅 @wimbledon.” But little did she know, she would soon have a personal invitation from the 29-year-old artist himself.
To Svitolina’s surprise, the “As it Was” singer quickly replied to the offer in a comment that garnered over 37,000 likes, writing, “Congratulations! We have four shows to go, you’re welcome at any of them. Good luck with the rest of the tournament. H”
Fans went wild over the unexpected interaction, with one saying, “Harry’s comment 🥹 You won 💘,” while another added: “If you win @wimbledon, maybe Harry can come to you. 🙌”
After advancing to the fourth round at Wimbledon, Svitolina played against former world No. 1 Victoria Azarenka. The match on Sunday, which Svitolina won, was the first between a Ukrainian player and Russian player at this year’s tournament.
Svitolina won the intense three-set match with an ace in the final-set tiebreak, and then refused to shake the Belarusian player hand post-game — something the world No. 76 player has been doing consistently given the ongoing war in her home country.
When Svitolina refused a handshake, Azarenka stood at the net and offered a hand gesture as appreciation instead. As she walked off the court, the crowd booed the two-time Australian Open champ.
Azarenka, the No. 19 seed, told reporters after the game that she respected Svitolina’s decision, and thought it was unfair of the crowd to react in such a way.
“What should I have done? Stayed and waited? I mean, there’s no thing that I could do that would have been right, so I just did what I thought was respectful towards her decision,” Azarenka said.
Svitolina, who made a triumphant return to tennis this year after having a baby, is celebrating both her first ever victory against Azarenka after five previous defeats and the second time she’s made it to the Wimbledon quarterfinals. During her on-court interview, she joked that winning this “extremely tough match” was the second best moment of her life — following her daughter’s birth.
[Source: People]