“I feel like I’m at a good place” – despite disappointment, Svitolina is proud of the work she has done during her comeback

It ended on Monday, with pain shooting up her back. Not a dream scenario for a player who seemed to be closing in on a fairy tale ending at the Australian Open, but Elina Svitolina can take solace in the fact that she has made incredible progress since her “second career” began, when she returned from maternity leave last spring.

“I’m proud of the work and of the situation, stressful situations, and how I’ve been handling them on the court because this was the most I would say difficult for me as a comeback,” she told reporters after being forced to retire from her round of 16 match with Linda Noskova due to a back injury.

She should be proud.

Svitolina has rebuilt her ranking and emerged as a threat at the Grand Slams once again. In 2023, after commencing her comeback in April, the 29-year-old reached the quarter-finals at Roland-Garros, the semi-finals at Wimbledon and the third-round at Wimbledon. After a year off the tour, she returned with a ranking outside the top 1000 and has since returned to the top 20.

Not bad at all.

Svitolina says that it has taken her time to reacquaint herself with the rigours of playing high-stakes tennis on the tour, but she has solved those issues and become comfortable once again with the stress and strain of competing at the elite level.

“I was at the beginning not dealing really well with the stressful situations like score-wise,” she said. “Now I feel like I’m much better. I’ve been playing good matches, beating good players. I feel like I’m at a good place and been playing really well when I was down.”

Svitolina says her fighting spirit has guided her over the last year. It’s an integral part or who she is as a tennis player, no doubt, and always will be.

“Coming back, fighting spirit, everything is back,” she said. “I feel like I’m striking the ball well. As I mentioned for me the only thing I wish is that my health would be better. Before, my health was quite stable. I never really had a long-term injury.”

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My lower back completely locked

The mother of Baby Ski and wife of ATP star Gael Monfils couldn’t manage to avoid a difficult ending on Monday in Melbourne. She says she has never suffered a back injury that came with such sharp, debilitating pain.

“I think I never had that before, the shooting pain like this,” she said. “I had some injuries to my back before where it just was tiredness the next day of the match, but this one was really out of nowhere. I felt like someone shot me in the back.

“My lower back completely locked. So, yeah, I’m really in pain even walking, turning. I cannot move side-to-side. Yeah, very strange,” she said, adding: “Hopefully it’s short-term. I don’t know. Maybe a spasm or something. Hopefully I will be back training maybe in one week.

“Of course, long flight I had. That’s not going to help. In a way I will have to take one day at a time, have to do my recovery, do the scan as soon as I get back home, and go from there. Hopefully I don’t have something serious.”

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Olympics, Monfils, Ukraine: All you ever wanted to know about Elina Svitolina (but never had time to find out) – updated with foot surgery and ending 2024 season

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