World No. 6 Elina Svitolina has reacted to reports that her decision to divorce Gael Monfils brought an abrupt end to the Frenchman’s farewell season.
According to L’Equipe’s Franck Ramella, Monfils had planned to play in front of his home fans in Lyon and Paris before calling time on his career. However, when Svitolina ended their relationship, he made the “abrupt decision” to withdraw from the anti-doping testing pool, effectively abandoning his farewell tour
“When Monfils learned the news, it hit him like a ton of bricks, and tennis, which he had often experienced as a kind of gentle madness, lost all meaning.
“He was no longer able to play,” Ramella wrote of Monfils’ decision to end his career.
Elina Svitolina Reacts to Backlash
Svitolina addressed the reports via Instagram on Tuesday.
“It’s not always possible to explain everything behind such personal and difficult decisions in a single post. And honestly, some things are simply too personal to share publicly. That was and is my view on announcing the end of our marriage but as some of you saw, Gaël’s career ended abruptly after he made the decision to stop based on our situation,” she wrote on Instagram.
“Unfortunately he had many accusations thrown at him and he didn’t deserve that, so we jointly released a statement.”
Essentially, the Ukranian star confirmed that Monfils ended his career prematurely due to the circumstances surrounding their relationship.
Elina Svitolina, Gael Monfils Divorce
In her statement on Monday, Svitolina cited the emotional toll of the Ukraine-Russia war but clarified that there was “no one to blame” for her divorce. On Tuesday, she delved a little deeper into the factors that led to the end of her marriage.
“I just want to clarify my previous post a little, because I realized that not everyone, especially my international audience, fully understood what I was trying to say,” she wrote on Instagram.
“In that post, I shared only one of the reasons that influenced my decision to reflect on my life and my future. But the truth is, there’s so much more to it, and it was never just about one thing.
“When you’ve been living through the reality of war for more than 4.5 years, experiencing so many different situations, emotions, and difficult moments, you naturally start seeing life differently.
“At some point, I simply realized that I didn’t want to keep living a life where I wasn’t truly happy. And believe me, coming to this decision was anything but easy.”
Svitolina and Monfils married in 2021 and have a daughter, Skai, born in Oct. 2022.
Svitolina was last seen in action in a quarterfinal loss to Sonay Kartal in Wuhan. She has qualified for the yearending WTA Finals, joining World No. 1 Elena Rybakina, Aryna Sabalenka, Mirra Andreeva, Jessica Pegula, Coco Gauff and Linda Noskova.
Elina Svitolina Responds to Claims She Ended Gael Monfils’ Career