It’s time to consider whether having a child, and taking a year off from the sport to raise money to help her compatriots back home in Ukraine, has made Elina Svitolina a better tennis player .
He says they have, and there’s no reason not to believe him.
Svitolina’s improbable run at Wimbledon continued on Tuesday. Two days after Svitolina, a new mother who needed a wild card to enter the tournament, lost to the former world No. 1 Victoria Azarenka of Belarus in an emotional and dramatic victory, Svitolina defeated the current world No. 1, Iga Swiatek.
Svitolina, playing with pluck, steely and a higher purpose, matched Swiatek’s bold shot for shot, and then some, on the sport’s most hallowed court, sending the crowd cheering along since his first shot of a tournament he thought was over for him for now.
When the match ended, Svitolina put a hand to her face, hugged Swiatek from across the net and then raised both arms to the crowd with a shrug of disbelief.
“I don’t know what’s going on right now,” Svitolina told them after a few moments.
Some things are hard to explain.
Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine 18 months ago, Svitolina announced she was taking a break from professional tennis because she was pregnant with her first child with husband Gaël Monfils, the veteran tour pro and tennis showman from France .
Tennis was hardly a priority then. Her pregnancy was at the top of the list, and so was raising money for her homeland’s war relief efforts. His foundation has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars since the war began.
In October, she and Monfils announced the birth of their daughter, Skai. Not long after, Svitolina began training and practicing for her return to the WTA Tour, in March at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells.
It didn’t go well at first, as she lost six of her first seven matches, but Svitolina — an elegant and deceptively powerful player who was ranked as high as third in the world as recently as 2019 — gradually regained her his feeling. for the ball and for the competition.
And he made it clear, especially during the French Open in Paris, that tennis is no longer about money or ranking points. It is about trying to bring some joy to the people of Ukraine.
He did a lot as he made it to the quarterfinals at Wimbledon. However, he has made it past the second round there just twice in eight attempts and has not competed on grass since 2021 until last month. Her hopes were so low that she bought tickets to a Harry Styles concert last week, thinking she would be free.
He’s not, and after his win over Swiatek on Tuesday, he said he doesn’t think he’ll be taking the pop star up on his offer to invite him to a concert anytime soon.
“It was very sweet from him,” he said about Styles’ offer. “I hope one day I can go.”
She will have to wait at least until after her semifinal match on Thursday against Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic, who defeated Jessica Pegula of the United States in three sets. A win against Vondrousova could set up a showdown in the finals with a player from Belarus (Aryna Sabalenka) or with Elena Rybakina, the defending champion, who grew up in Russia but represents Kazakhstan. Sabalenka and Rybakina play their quarterfinal matches on Wednesday and are heavy favourites.
That’s on the way, though, and will certainly bring tension similar to that of Svitolina’s fourth-round win over Azarenka. Players from Russia and Belarus were banned from playing in the tournament last year, and while they were mostly warmly received, Svitolina and other players from Ukraine refused to shake hands with players from those countries. .
Azarenka was booed off the court – unfairly, Svitolina said – after Svitolina lost her match Sunday, though Azarenka gave Svitolina a thumbs-up after the final point. Last year, Azarenka offered to play in a charity fund-raiser to benefit war relief efforts, even though players from Ukraine told her not to. But the boos still rained down.
Swiatek, who is from Poland and a staunch critic of the invasion, has done more than any non-Ukrainian player to aid the war relief efforts.
But there was no shortage of healthy tension in Tuesday’s match. Swiatek, a four-time Grand Slam tournament champion, looked to be in control early and even served for the first set at 5-4. He then missed a series of tentative and wild forehands and served first. Svitolina kept making her shots over the tight wires, clearing the net by mere inches, over and over again for the rest of the afternoon.
He won 16 of the last 18 points in the first set. As the roof closed with rain on the way, a dazed Swiatek headed to the corner of the court, demanding answers from his team.
“I felt like I was making almost the same mistakes,” Swiatek said. “I wanted some tips, what they think I should focus on. Sometimes when something doesn’t work, it’s hard to find a reason because there could be several reasons.”
The biggest reason of all was Svitolina, who later said she was playing with a different kind of inspiration. He spent parts of the last two days watching videos of his son in Ukraine watching his matches on a phone. He knows what his achievements mean and where they fit into the grand scheme of things.
All of that has power.
“The war made me stronger and also made me stronger mentally,” he said. “I don’t take hard situations as like a disaster, you know? There are worse things in life. I’m just calmer.”
Make no doubt: He wants to win, but his experience with pressure has changed.
“I look at things a little differently,” he said.
After he left court, he made a FaceTime call to Monfils, who — along with his mother — was babysitting their son at one of their homes. He said Skai doesn’t talk to him much. He turned to a serving of ice cream.
Can he win this tournament and the biggest prize of all?
She insisted, as she did after the Azarenka match, that she was not meant to go this far. He didn’t let his wife in, because he hadn’t been here before, and he didn’t disturb his routine now. Who needs him, when he has other goals and other powers, especially against opponents from Russia and Belarus?
“Every time I play against them, it’s a big motivation, a big responsibility,” he said. “Right now, it’s too far. It seems so close, but so far from here.”