Fans wondered what could have possibly caused Marta Kostyuk to give Paula Badosa a frosty handshake following their Australian Open match but many probably don't remember that the Ukrainian once publicly said that she was left disappointed by the Spaniard.
In 2022 April - two months after the war in Ukraine started - the current top-ranked Ukrainian tennis player revealed that the Spanish star was one of the first players to approach her and ask how she was doing.
Grateful by the act, Kostyuk said that she offered Badosa to play doubles together but the 27-year-old apparently didn't sound too open to the idea as she explained that she was pretty much only focused on singles.
But then, the Spaniard played doubles with Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka in Miami, Stuttgart and Madrid during the 2022 spring.
Kostyuk: I asked Badosa - then I saw her play doubles with Sabalenka - it really surprised me
"In early March, when we arrived in Indian Wells, it was the first time Paula and I met. She approached me and asked me, how I was, if everything was fine with my family. And that was it," the 22-year-old told BTU in 2022 April.
"In Indian Wells or in Dubai, I asked her if she would like to play doubles with me because I thought we could do well. She said, 'let's try to play in Madrid, let's try somewhere else, but actually I dont play doubles at all'.
"Then I saw that she was playing doubles with Aryna Sabalenka in Miami and Stuttgart. It really surprised me. I realized I would no longer ask her about playing doubles together."
At the time, there was a lot of conversation about Wimbledon banning Russian and Belarusian players.
When asked about it, Badosa suggested that sports shouldn't be mixed with politics.
Addressing that in the same interview, Kostyuk said: "It was strange to me, but she is not the only one who feels this way."
On Friday, the Spaniard beat the Ukrainian 6-4 4-6 6-3 in the Australian Open third round.
After their cold handshake, Badosa said that she didn't have anything to do with that and said that her opponent "has her own things."
Fans instantly pointed to the Spanish tennis star's very close friendship with Sabalenka and thought that it had something to do with that.
And probably it's a bit of everything.
