Svitolina turns – Elina Svitolina describes how daily news from Ukraine—bombed cities, a family under siege for four years—feeds the motivation she needs to step onto court. With her daughter in Switzerland cheering her on by FaceTime, Svitolina heads into the French Open as wo
Elina Svitolina wakes up, checks the news, and then decides whether she can get herself to the tennis court.
On those mornings, the stakes arrive before a racket ever does. She sees Odesa—the city where she was born—bombed. She looks at another stretch of Kharkiv. where she became the greatest player Ukraine has ever produced. and where the fighting is now close enough to reduce everyday life to rubble. There is also the quiet. relentless weight behind those images: her grandmother still lives in Odesa. and Svitolina worries about the rest of her family and her friends who have been under siege for four years.
So she finds motivation in fragments. The thought that her grandmother will be following her match that night. The awareness that she is representing her country and that Ukrainians need something to cheer for. And then, when she can, she reaches for something closer.
She FaceTimes with her three-year-old daughter, Skaï, who stays back home in Switzerland, where she attends preschool. Skaï tells her to “win against the lady.” The next morning, Svitolina looks forward to calling her and saying she did it—that she won.
In the background of all that emotion is the work she’s doing on court. Lately, she has been beating a lot of the ladies. In early May. she won a tournament in Rome. defeating three of the top four women: Elena Rybakina. Iga Świątek. and Coco Gauff. All three are former Grand Slam winners. Svitolina’s run has carried her to world No. 7.
She has also built something more than momentum. She has defeated all the players ranked above her at least once. And now she is a contender to win the French Open, which begins today.
When Svitolina spoke last week, the day before she left for Paris, she said she wasn’t thinking about the title. Not yet. Her focus was on recovering—physically and mentally—from the exhausting two weeks in Rome, which she described as requiring her maximum effort.
After that, she shifts into match mode. The first opponent, by a cruel twist of the draw, is the Hungarian Anna Bondar, a player Svitolina calls a nightmare opponent. Bondar has beaten her at the U.S. Open last year and again in Madrid only a few weeks ago.
If Svitolina gets past Bondar, she will think about the second round. If she wins that match, then she will worry about the next one, and so on. Every player says some version of “one match at a time.” Svitolina just describes it differently.
“It’s not a matter of protecting herself, psychologically, from the burden of expectations but, rather, of making space for them,” she said.
Her time is valuable. She does not want to waste it. “Every moment requires her fresh attention,” she explained.
There is a longer story underneath her current run—one that helps explain why the pressure doesn’t just break her. it shapes her. Younger Elina. before she married Gael Monfils. before she left the tour for a time to have a baby. before her homeland was invaded. was focused on trophies. She wanted them, and wanted them fast. “Results, results, results,” she told me.
Her results then were good. She won that Rome title twice. She won the World Tour Finals, contested by the top players of the year. She moved toward the top of the game, peaking at No. 3.
But she describes that era as a different kind of player. Back then, she was a defensive-minded counterpuncher—fast and athletic, but also a grinder. Reliability and consistency were her hallmarks. Admirable qualities, she says, but unexciting—and vulnerable to players with more power who could blow her off the court.
Then came the marriage and the life around it. Monfils is known for his shotmaking and is beloved on the tour. Russia invaded Ukraine. Eight months later, Svitolina and Monfils had Skaï.
When she returned to tennis less than six months after Skaï was born, she says she felt galvanized. She had a platform and a purpose—and, strikingly, a new playing style. She had watched the game change.
“It’s more about who takes the earlier opportunities,” she told me.
To keep up, she said she needed bigger groundstrokes and an attacking forehand. She needed to be more efficient. She said the shift was partly born out of necessity.
Now thirty-one years old. she still has elite speed. but she knows she can’t run as well as she could when she was twenty. She has to shorten points. “Of course. it’s not always possible to do it in the best possible way. but I’m really trying to force myself to be really brave on some decisions. ” she said. “Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn’t.”.
All of that—wartime alarm in the morning. a daughter telling her to win. a change in how she builds points—lands in the same place at the French Open. Not in grand promises. In the decision to step forward. point by point. match by match. with everything that can’t be controlled humming behind every swing.
Elina Svitolina French Open Anna Bondar Rome tournament Ukraine war Odesa Kharkiv Skaï Svitolina Gael Monfils world number 7 tennis