Aryna Sabalenka apologised for her angry outburst during her defeat by Elina Svitolina at the WTA Finals but denied that she was insulting her Ukrainian opponent.

Television footage appeared to show the Belarusian swearing in Russian during Friday’s round-robin match, with some social media users interpreting her remarks as being directed at Svitolina or Ukrainians.

The loss eliminated Sabalenka from the season-ending tournament and capped a disappointing week in which the former world No 1 suffered a heavy defeat against Mirra Andreeva.

Sabalenka did not clarify if she did say something in reference to Ukraine, but she did confirm that her outburst was aimed at supporters of Svitolina and not the player herself.

“My comment was not directed at Elina,” Sabalenka said in a social media post.

“I was frustrated with a small group of spectators who were aggressively cheering my mistakes, and I reacted emotionally in the moment.

“That said, I should have handled my frustration differently, and I apologise to anyone I offended.

“Elina played a great match, and I wish her all the best for the rest of the tournament.”

Svitolina did not shake hands with Sabalenka after the match, maintaining her policy of not doing so with Russian or Belarusian opponents following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow launched with Belarus as a staging ground.

Svitolina also declined to be photographed with Sabalenka or any other Russian and Belarusian players as part of her anti-war stance.

In response to Sabalenka’s statement, Svitolina said after her semi-final victory over Linda Noskova on Saturday: “As we see there’s many, many Ukrainians, many, many flags and of course they want me to win this particular match.

“We’ve played many times with Aryna. She has her fans. I have my fans.

“I just hope the matches between us [are] respected. Sometimes in some matches that we’ve played also there have been not great comments towards me in regards of the war.

“It is like this in the social media, sometimes the things are turned around a little bit.”

Svitolina, the 2018 WTA Finals champion, faces Russian teenager Andreeva in Sunday’s final after the latter got the last laugh over Jessica Pegula.

Andreeva produced a near immaculate display in Indian Wells to win 6-3, 6-4 in 85 minutes and claim a semblance of revenge against her American rival.

Pegula made headlines before the end-of-season tournament started when she made disparaging comments about Andreeva’s mentality to her coach during a training session, which were picked up on a livestream that the world No 5 had not been aware of.

The “hot mic” moment failed to stop Pegula qualifying into the semi-finals, but she had no answer to Andreeva after a shaky start.