At Roland Garros,
Immense and interminable sorrows – because of the war in Ukraine – interspersed with beautiful moments of joy as after the victory of her husband Gaël Monfils, Tuesday evening, such is the Parisian life of the Ukrainian Elina Svitolina, victorious in the first round of Roland from Australia’s Storm Hunter-Sanders. Less than twelve hours after the Monf masterclass, which she experienced live from the Central court despite the late hour and the crazy scenario in five sets. “I watched the game in full but despite that I still managed to sleep for seven hours in a row, which is not so common lately,” she smiled, referring to the short nights following the arrival of the baby in the team.
“I’m extremely proud of the game he played yesterday, he never gave up even though he was struggling, I could feel his pain on the screen. We have been training together lately, he was coming back from injury, I was coming back from pregnancy, and I can assure you that he is training hard, he is spending hours there and wants to be the player he was before. He is no longer 25, of course, but he has experience and I think he still has great matches to play like yesterday. I think with a few more games he will ramp up. At the moment he is recovering and I hope he will be ready for Thursday”.
If Monfils dragged a little more than his companion in the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, with a passage in conf at the stroke of 1:20 am, the guy was already fresh and ready in the stands of Simonne-Mathieu to encourage his wife, what did not fail to greet the person concerned. “It gave me a lot of motivation, he made a lot of effort to be there, he motivated me to fight, to play every point at 100%,” she said.
Roland-Garros is the first tournament that the couple has played together since the birth of their daughter. “Skaï is with us in Paris, everything is going very well for the moment, we are having a good time on and off the court. We have people who are there to take care of her during the day, it’s essential so that we can concentrate 100% on tennis, so that our mind is freed to be able to give everything on the court. So much for the fun part.
War is never far away
But Svitolina did not escape the saddening questions, those that bring you back directly to reality with the painful context of the war in the country. Asked how we get used to the no to live with that, Svitolina did not want to dwell on his personal case, far from the Russian missiles and the daily fear of dying there. “I talk a lot with my family and my friends in Ukraine, it’s horrible what happens but they got used to it, the sirens, the fact of running for cover as soon as the sirens sound, sleepless nights. It’s terrible but it’s human nature to get used to everything, ”she said.
Almost fifteen months after the start of the war, the Ukrainian player says she oscillates daily between “pain, sadness and anger”. Always with the same resolution when she is in a tournament: “When I enter the court, I think of the fighting spirit that all Ukrainians show, of the fact that they are fighting for their values and their freedom. And I’m fighting here on my own front, I can’t be sad or distracted or I’m going to lose. When the war started I was in Monterrey and I almost cried when I got to the field, I had a weight in my chest, and that day I said to myself that from now on I will go 100% on the short because I have a flag next to my name, I fight for my country. »