Harry Styles invites Elina Svitolina to new tour date after Wimbledon run forced her to miss Vienna show
Harry Styles has invited Elina Svitolina to see him on tour after the tennis star was forced to miss his Vienna concert because of her Wimbledon winning streak.
The 28-year-old Ukrainian wildcard is through to the quarter-finals after beating Belarusian Victoria Azarenka, 33, in a three-set thriller on Court One on Sunday.
Ahead of their fourth-round match, Svitolina revealed that her run at SW19 meant she had to give away tickets to Saturday’s gig she had planned to attend in the Austrian capital.
She wrote on social media: “Hey guys!! I was supposed to go to see my fav @harrystyles concert in Vienna tomorrow.
“But Wimbledon changed my plans [along with three crying emojis]. Someone want to go? I have two tickets.”
The official Wimbledon Instagram account shared her dilemma with fans, writing: “You win some, you lose some.”
Styles then saw the post and offered her tickets himself, writing: “Congratulations! We have four shows to go, you’re welcome at any of them. Good luck with the rest of the tournament. H.”
The remaining dates in his Love On Tour this month are Barcelona on Wednesday, Madrid on Friday, Lisbon on 18 July and Reggio Emilia in Italy on 22 July.
If she gets all the way to Saturday’s women’s singles final, she could catch Styles in Portugal or Italy.
At the Vienna gig, the UK pop star was hit in the face by a thrown object as he performed on stage.
Videos shared online from the concert at the Ernst Happel Stadium showed him walking across the stage before an item flies through the air and strikes him near his eye.
After being struck, he can be seen wincing in pain before bending over while clutching his face in his hands.
Meanwhile, it has been a stellar run for the Ukrainian sports star who began playing tennis again in January after giving birth last October.
There was controversy after her win against Azarenka when the crowd booed the Belarusian as she walked off court.
They may have jeered her after she did not shake hands with Svitolina following her victory.
But the Ukrainian has previously made it clear she is not prepared to shake hands with any Russian or Belarusian player since the invasion of her home country.
Azarenka gave a long, lingering stare before banging her fists together in annoyance as she walked off Court One.
She later accused Wimbledon fans of being “drunk”.
She said: “She [Svitolina] doesn’t want to shake hands with Russian, Belarusian people. I respected her decision. What should I have done? Stayed and waited? 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.”
She added: “I thought it was a great tennis match. If people are going to be focusing only on handshakes or a quite drunk crowd, booing in the end, that’s a shame.”
Svitolina, a former world number three, was herself booed off at the French Open, where she also made the last eight, for refusing to shake hands with Russian and Belarusian opponents.
But at Wimbledon, it was Azarenka who received loud jeers after putting her hand up to acknowledge Svitolina before leaving the court.
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