“A lot of players didn’t check on us,” Elina Svitolina calls out the lack of support from fellow players and explains how her priorities have changed after the war in Ukraine
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Elina svitolina
Elina Svitolina is a Ukrainian professional tennis player. Her highest career rankings in singles were no. 3 and 108 in doubles. Svitolina has won 16 WTA Tour singles titles in her career and finished as a runner-up three times. The Ukrainian’s peak came in 2019-20 when she reached the grand slam semi-finals twice in French Open and US Open in 2019 and won an Olympic Bronze medal in Tokyo 2020.
The former world No.3 is expecting her first child with her husband and professional tennis player Gael Monfils and is still determined to continue her campaign for her home country Ukraine which has been going through war.
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“It was difficult to concentrate 100%” Elins Svitolina explain how she felt playing when Ukraine was being attacked
When Elina found out that she was pregnant, it was meant to be the happiest time for her and Monfils but the pair’s joy was cut short a few days after her country was invaded by their neighboring country’s president Vladimir Putin who sent his forces which started a war between Ukraine and Russia.
She spent hours on calls with journalists and speaking on television broadcasts, relentlessly asking friendly states and the general public to help her homeland in any way they could. All these times when she was pregnant, she continued to play and wear the blue and yellow Ukraine flag and even reached the quarter-finals of the Monterrey Open soon after the war began.
Finally, in May, she put down her racquet as she couldn’t stress her body more due to pregnancy but she kept on campaigning for home through other mediums against the Russian aggression. Elina Svitolina has changed her life as she explained to the Australian daily The Age. While she awaits her child to be born in October. She remembers in particular that when the war broke out, not everything was “pink”: “A lot of players didn’t even come to ask us how our family was doing. It created tension.”
Elina understood her priorities after her break from tennis, “My priorities have completely changed. I didn’t feel in the right place when I was playing a tournament. It was difficult to concentrate 100% on my work, so I wanted to take a step back. I am happy to take my time and focus on my life again. Now I’m near my people where they need me.”
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