LONDON — Elina Svitolina has announced her marriage to Gael Monfils is ending, saying she needs to “find my way back to myself” while insisting that “our family is not”. The 32-year-old world No 6 revealed the news on Instagram on Monday, four years after the pair married in the summer of 2021 following the start of their relationship in 2019, and almost four years after the birth of their daughter Skai in late 2022.
In an emotional statement, Svitolina said the war in Ukraine had taken a profound toll and that she had been “slowly losing myself” through sleepless nights and doubts. “This is the most difficult thing I have ever had to share,” she wrote. “Gaël saw all of it. He never let go of my hand. We fought through this together for a long time, with everything we had. But some battles happen deep inside you, and no amount of love from someone else can win them for you.”
Svitolina said she told followers last year she needed to step away from the court because she was not in the right emotional space, and now understands she “cannot do that within our marriage”. She described that realisation as “the hardest truth I have ever had to face and the hardest thing I have ever had to tell the person I love”, adding that Monfils had listened with “strength and grace I will never forget”. She stressed there is “no one to blame”, asked for kindness and space to “heal”, sent her love and respect to the Frenchman, and said Skai “will always come first” as they remain parents “side by side, at every step of her life”.
The announcement comes weeks after the pair played mixed doubles together at the US Open in September. Monfils, who quietly retired from tennis earlier this month at the age of 40, had been scheduled to end his storied career at the Paris Masters in the coming weeks, a plan that now no longer seems to be the case.