A hero at Wimbledon: Who is Elina Svitolina?

But life had given Svitolina a strength she had never known before.

Elina Svitolina says having children and staying away from the sport for a year to help her compatriots in Ukraine have made her an even better tennis player, she says. We have no reason not to believe her.

Svitolina's unexpected rise at Wimbledon was enough to make her one of this year's heroes.

Participating in the tournament only with a special invitation, that is, with a "wild card", new mother Svitolina first defeated former Belarusian world number 1 Victoria Azarenka in the match, and two days later she eliminated current world number 1 Polish Iga Swiatek. With courage and a game of steel...

Elina Mykhailivna Svitolina (born 12 September 1994) is a Ukrainian professional tennis player. She reached career-high rankings of world No. 3 in singles and 108 in doubles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA). Svitolina has won 17 WTA Tour singles titles and finished runner-up three times. 2023: Comeback, 17th WTA title, French Open quarterfinal & Wimbledon semifinal. As a result she returned to the top 30 rising close to 50 positions up in the rankings.

When the match was over, Svitolina brought her hand to her face, hugged Swiatek from the other side of the net, and then raised both arms towards the crowd, where she was staring at her with astonishment. “I don't know what's going on right now,” she was able to say after a few moments.

“I don't play for money or ranking”

Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine 18 months ago, Svitolina announced that she was taking a hiatus from professional tennis as she was pregnant with her first child with her French ex-professional wife, Gaël Monfils.

Tennis was not her priority at the time. She was pregnant in the first place. She also wanted to help her homeland in the war. The foundation she founded has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars since the start of the war.

In October, Svitolina and her husband Monfils announced the birth of their daughter, Skai. Shortly thereafter, Svitolina began training to return to the sport with the WTA Tour at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California, in March.

She lost six of her first seven games. However, Svitolina, a graceful and powerful player who had risen to third place in the world rankings as early as 2019, has slowly started to regain her relationship with the ball. Especially during the French Open in Paris, she made it clear that tennis is no longer about money or standing. The point was to please the Ukrainians a little.

She did so by reaching the quarter-finals at Wimbledon. Moreover, she has only made it to the second round of the eight Wimbledon she has participated in before, and she has never played an official game on a grass court from 2021 until last month. Her hope was so low that she bought tickets to a Harry Styles concert last week, thinking I'd be eliminated early.

When Styles found out about this, he invited her to a recent concert. “It was such a sweet move. I hope I can go one day.”

But she couldn't go any longer.

Last year, Russian and Belarusian players were banned from participating in Wimbledon. Svitolina and other Ukrainian players refuse to shake hands with their opponents from these countries.

However, Svitolina also finds it unfair that Azarenka was booed on the court. Moreover, at the end of the match, Azarenka congratulated the winner Svitolina with a thumb gesture. Azarenka offered to play at a fundraiser last year to support war victims, but the Ukrainian athletes refused.

Motivated by watching video

Polish Swiatek, who has been critical of the Russian occupation from the very beginning, supported these aid efforts more than many players.

But there was also a healthy level of tension in Tuesday's game. Four-time Grand Slam winner Swiatek seemed to take control early on. She was leading 5-4 in the first set and was serving. However, Svitolina resisted and took 16 of the remaining 18 points in the first set. While the roof was being closed due to the rain, she turned and asked her team for help. “I felt like I was making pretty much the same mistakes. I asked them to tell me what to focus on. Sometimes you can't find the cause of the error because there is more than one reason," she would say.

The biggest reason that day was Svitolina's game. She had spent some of the last two days watching videos of children in Ukraine on their phones watching her games. She knew what their victory meant.

There is a power that all of these provide. “The war also strengthened me mentally. I don't see difficult situations as disasters anymore, you know? There are worse things in life. I am calmer now,” she says.

No doubt she still wants to win, but her perspective on pressure has changed.

After leaving the court, she called Monfils, who was looking after her mother and daughters, via FaceTime.