Sport has always been very popular in Odessa. The most famous sports, in which Odessa’s athletes achieved the most noticeable results were football, rowing, figure skating and, of course, tennis. Now several Odessa tennis players are included in the world elite of this sport. The brightest star among them is Elina Svitolina.
Elina Svitolina bio
Elina Svitolina was born on September 12, 1994. Now she is 26 years old, and she has been playing tennis for 22 years, because it was at the age of 4 that she first picked up a racket. She grew up in a family of professional athletes, so it’s not surprising that she takes sports seriously. But first, her elder brother Julian began to play tennis. It was he, who brought little Elina to the court. Her career received a further impetus in 2006; it was at some local competitions where the young tennis player attracted the attention of Kharkov’s businessman Yuri Sapronov, who expressed a desire to become her sponsor. To make it easier for Elina to study, the whole family moved to the other end of the country, from Odessa to Kharkov.
Now Elina’s whole life is spent mainly abroad. The girl visits her native Odessa and Kharkov only a few times a year, giving all her spare time to training and competitions.
Elina Svitolina – career statistics
The Ukrainian tennis player first declared herself in 2009, taking part in the US Open Junior World Championships. Unfortunately, this attempt was unsuccessful, in the first round Elina lost to a competitor, but the following year 2010 she was a winner of Roland Garros among juniors. In the doubles, the athlete’s achievement was the junior final of Wimbledon together with Irina Khromacheva.
For 10 years in professional sports Elina has won 15 titles in singles and 2 in doubles. She has not yet won the Grand Slam tournaments, but in 2018 she became the winner of the Final Tournament.
In 2016, Svitolina also took part in the Olympics, where she reached the quarterfinals.
Best of the best
Ukrainian athlete also turned out to be a very uncomfortable rival for the world’s first rackets, as she won all the matches from the 2016 Olympic Games to November 2019 with best of the best. Really, she won Serena Williams, Simona Halep twice and Angelique Kerbert three times, who were for that time on the first point of world ranking.
Third in the world
Among Elina’s achievements are national records. For example, in January 2017, the 13th place in the WTA rankings became a record among Ukrainian women-athletes. Therefore, the next achievements of Elina broke her own records – in May 2017, the sixth racket in the world, in August – the fourth. Until Elina, such a height was subordinated only to the best tennis player in Ukraine – Andriy Medvedev. But in September, Svitolina surpassed everyone, becoming the third racket in the world. So far, no tennis player from Ukraine has managed to achieve a better result. Currently, Elina remains the best.
Elina took third place in the world rankings in september of 2017 at US Open, despite losing in the fourth round to Madison Keys. It was an opportunity to conquer the first step in general, but, unfortunately, Svitolina lost it.
Tennis in quarantine period
Of course, the coronavirus epidemic has imposed its restrictions on all sports calendars. Nevertheless, Elina continues to participate in world competitions and currently ranks fifth in the world rankings. This year, the girl has already won the tournament in Strasbourg and Monterey. This allows her to remain in the world tennis elite and claim the top spot in the rankings.