‘Treasure moments on the court’ – Elina Svitolina reveals home life helps her return to tennis at 2023 French Open

Elina Svitolina told Eurosport that a settled family life is the basis of what she needs in her career where she can “treasure moments on the court.”

The Ukrainian defeated Martina Trevisan 6-2 6-2 to reach the second round of the French Open on Monday, and speaking to Mats Wilander for Eurosport, she discussed her return to the sport.

She said: “Yes, feeling good, slowly getting there, back into it, back into a good rhythm, back to a good level. Really happy with it, happy with last week’s level, I was getting my level fixed a little bit here and there in some matches but really happy with how I could handle the tough moments. For sure the start here, the first round was tough against Martina.

“She’s a good player, she makes a lot of balls so I had to be ready for that and played really solid today, was serving good and that made me really happy.”

After taking almost a year out away from tennis, Svitolina was content with her year away, saying: “I had a break from tennis, I didn’t play for eight, nine months. It was important for me to just switch off completely from tennis because I’d never really stopped.

“It really helped me to see my tennis, tennis in general a bit differently. Right now I’m just trying to build on what I have, and be a bit more realistic about what I can do, what I have to practise on. Slowly just getting back into it and just trying to enjoy it.”

Discussing her husband Gael Monfils, she added: “Yeah, we talk quite, quite a lot and like, for example, after Rome, you know, I had some tough losses and he really was there for me. We were talking a lot about the situations that we are in right now and in the end we are just trying to treasure the moments on the court.

“You know, these opportunities that we get on some tournaments with wild cards and, like some, some big tournaments like a grand slam. You know, we have this opportunity right now, try to enjoy as much as we can and just work and try to climb back our level and then the ranking will follow.”

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