The news that Elina Svitolina and Gael Monfils had split caused a stir because of the reasons the Ukrainian gave. “Everyone knows how much Ukraine means to me. What I have rarely spoken about is what the war has done to me inside,” she wrote on social media.
Now, 24 hours after the original post, the world No. 6 has had to clarify her words. “I realized that not everyone, especially my international audience, fully understood what I was trying to say. In that post, I shared only one of the reasons that influenced my decision… But the truth is, there’s so much more to it, and it was never just about one thing,” she began.
“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. Your perspective changes, your values and priorities shift, and you begin to understand what you truly want out of life,” added the 2018 WTA Finals champion.
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Svitolina was clear: “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.”
The Ukrainian also addressed Monfils’ decision to bring his retirement forward. “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, Gael’s career ended abruptly after he made the decision to stop based on our situation. Unfortunately he had many accusations thrown at him and he didn’t deserve that, so we jointly released a statement,” she said.
Monfils had been due to retire at the Paris Masters in November, but in early October he appeared on the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) list of retired players. The marital crisis between the pair was the trigger for the Frenchman to forgo a formal farewell and bring his career to a quiet end.
