Injuries, war, returning from motherhood: before her quarter-final against Madison Keys (14th in the world) on Wednesday at the Australian Open, the Ukrainian Elina Svitolina (27th) made her “fighting spirit” her mark factory.
Trailing one set to zero in the 3rd round against world No. 4 Jasmine Paolini, the former No. 3 in the women’s ranking managed to turn the match around to finally win 2-6, 6-4, 6-0.
“All Ukrainians have this fighting spirit,” she said after the match while her country has been at war with Russia for almost three years. “At all levels, we fight for what belongs to us,” adds the thirty-year-old, before leaving the court writing “Love Ukraine” on the camera.
Rebelote Monday in the round of 16, when the Russian Veronika Kudermetova (75th) breaks away at 4-1 in the first set. Svitolina lines up five games in a row to win the first set, wins the match 6-4, 6-1 and leaves the court writing “the spirit of Ukraine” on the camera.
“The war has been raging for almost three years,” she recalled at a press conference, she who no longer shakes the hands of her Russian opponents after the matches.
“I sometimes have the impression that people forget that the war is still there, that we still need help. As a sportswoman, one of the best in Ukraine, I feel that I need to make my voice heard as much as possible to (help raise) awareness,” Svitolina explained.
The last representative of her country at the Australian Open, after the elimination of her compatriots Marta Kostyuk (18th) and Dayana Yastremska (33rd) in the 3rd round, Svitolina reached the 12th quarter-final of her career in Melbourne, after a year 2024 that she has decided to close at the end of the US Open in September.
In 2024, “I struggled quite a bit against multiple injuries”, mainly in the back and foot, underlined the wife of Frenchman Gaël Monfils, 41st in the world.
Having surgery on her right foot just after the US Open, the three-time Grand Slam semi-finalist (Wimbledon 2019 and 2023, US Open 2019) is pleased to have taken the time to “stop” and “invest in her body “.
A second break in the space of two years, since Svitolina gave birth to a daughter at the end of 2022. She then returned to the courts in April 2023 and reached the quarter-finals at Roland-Garros and the semi-finals that year. -finals at Wimbledon.
-“She goes hard”
Results that were not obvious. The Japanese Naomi Osaka (51st), who became a mother in 2023, highlighted before the Australian Open the impact of childbirth on the body of a top athlete.
“After giving birth, even the simple act of running was very difficult for me,” said the former world No. 1, finalist of the Auckland tournament at the beginning of January but forced to retire in the 3rd round against the Swiss Belinda Bencic, former world No. 4 and also a young mother.
“It’s very complicated to return to a professional level” even if Osaka “has been playing sport for (her) three years” and her return to fitness was therefore “a bit natural”.
Wednesday against Madison Keys, finalist of the US Open in 2017 and double semi-finalist in Melbourne (2015 and 2022), Svitolina will in any case find someone to talk to.
The American is the player with the most victories on the WTA circuit since the start of the season (11), and leads 3-2 in her confrontations with Svitolina. However, the two players have not faced each other for three years.
“I watched her match against Jasmine (Paolini) and I said to myself ‘OK, she’s going hard’. She hit incredible forehands. I was impressed,” commented Madison Keys after her victory in the round of 16.
“I think it’s not going to be the same match we’ve had in the past,” she continued. Against Paolini, “it was no longer the “vintage” Svitolina (old-fashioned, Editor’s note) who was playing! »
