Elina Svitolina’s Racquet – Player Profile

Written by: Bren Gray | January 21, 2025

Svitolina: From jealous kid to her country’s GOAT

Elina Svitolina is a tennis player, born to Ukrainian parents in the city of Odessa in 1990. While she does hail from a sporting family, neither of her parents or extended family ever played tennis. Her father was a wrestler, while her mother was a competitive rower. 

She wasn’t the only child in the family, with one older brother named Yulian. He was the one who played tennis first, and when the young Elina noticed her father showering her brother with attention, she decided she wanted that for herself. 

Her tennis career sprang from a child’s jealousy – a feeling familiar to so many of us. Over time, Svitolina would prove to be more talented than her brother and eventually she would become a professional tennis player.

Over the years, Svitolina established herself as one of the better players of her generation, winning a couple of big trophies and a medal at the Tokyo Olympics. She’s yet to win a Grand Slam, though, but the dream is not yet dead.

Elina Svitolina’s Tennis Racquet

As some of you know, she was previously with the Wilson brand but Svitolina is now using the Diadem Axis racquet for the 2025 season, the new spin line from Diadem. Click the link for more info and specs about her current gear.

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Biography

Growing up in post-Cold War Ukraine wasn’t easy for Svitolina because her family hails from a relatively modest background. She didn’t grow up with excess and actually had to search for people who would sponsor her very promising tennis career.

At the age of 13, Svitolina and her family moved to Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, to continue her tennis dream under the sponsorship of Ukrainian businessman Yuriy Sapronov. He had seen her when she was 12 and was impressed, promising to help her career.

That allowed the young Svitolina to focus solely on tennis, which she did. She had a promising juniors career, winning the Roland-Garros Girls’ title in 2010. That allowed her to move abroad to continue her tennis development. 

Despite being a native Ukrainian, Svitolina grew up speaking Russian, which was fairly common back at the time. She has since promised to master her native language, partly influenced by the war in Ukraine that broke out in 2021.

Elina Svitolina Professional Career Overview

Under the financial backing of Sparonov, Svitolina was able to dedicate most of her time to tennis. That allowed for some rapid development as she was a really strong teenage player. She turned professional at the age of 16 but had to wait until 2013 to win her maiden trophy, which she did in Baku.

The next year, Svitolina was able to win another WTA trophy, this one also coming in Baku as she defended her trophy from the previous year. She also had some solid results in Grand Slams as well. 

In 2015, Svitolina was able to make her maiden Grand Slam quarter-final, losing to Ana Ivanovic. After the event, she became world No 17, the highest-ranked Ukrainian woman ever, both under the Ukrainian flag or the Soviet Union flag.

Her first uber-successful year was in 2017 when she won multiple trophies, rising all the way to No 3 in the world. Obviously, that was the highest a Ukrainian woman ever ranked in the history of tennis.

The following season, Svitolina would continue playing well, winning the WTA Finals for the first and only time in her career, truly proving to belong among the best in the world when it comes to women’s tennis. In 2019, Svitolina once again amazed with her tennis. She made two Grand Slam semi-finals, the farthest she ever went on that level.

The following years were a bit weaker overall. She still had great success but also dealt with injury, slipping in and out of the top five. In 2022, she became pregnant and went on hiatus but returned after her pregnancy with some amazing tennis in 2024. Overall, she is by far the best Ukrainian tennis player of all time and certainly will remain so for quite a while.

She’s also credited with inspiring a new generation of Ukrainian tennis players that have since emerged on the WTA Tour, something she’s very proud of as an outspoken patriot.

Elina Svitolina’s Biggest Achievements

  • 3x Grand Slam semi-finalist (Wimbledon 2019, US Open 2019, Wimbledon 2023)
  • WTA Finals (2018)
  • Career high ranking of No 3 (2017)
  • Bronze medal at the 2020 Olympic Games
  • 17 career trophies

What is Elina Svitolina’s Playing Style?

Elina Svitolina, for the most part, is a counter-puncher. It’s not an unfamiliar playing style for most tennis fans, though Svitolina relies more on defense than actual counterpunching. She’s effectively a defensive baseliner, which was very useful a decade ago but not as potent a style these days with the increase of super-aggressive play in women’s tennis. 

She possesses a solid serve, which doesn’t have too much power. Her lack of power has been described as a weakness, especially as the Tour has shifted to a more power-based style in the past five to 10 years. 

Even so, Svitolina has been able to make the most out of her talents, proving to be an all-around solid player. Despite favoring clay and grass, she’s done really well on hard courts as well, with her net game being the only often-mentioned weakness. Not much of a problem for a baseliner.

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Who is Elina Svitolina’s Coach?

Svitolina has worked with many coaches over the past decade, starting with Sebastian Mathieu in 2013 to Raemon Sluiter in 2023. In between, she worked with others, including Justine Henin, which further helped her improve her backhand, her generally stronger side.

What is Elina Svitolina Best Known For?

It depends on who and where you ask. If you ask this question in her native Ukraine, then she will be known for her tennis and winning the first and only tennis medal for Ukraine. If you asked a casual in the US, they probably wouldn’t know her unless they knew tennis vaguely. 

If you asked a dedicated tennis fan, then you’d probably get many answers ranging from being a brilliant tennis player at her peak to being the wife of Gael Monfils, a universally beloved fellow tennis player. 

In more recent times, though, her name has been strongly associated with the Ukrainian cause as she has been front and center in several charities as well as advocacy groups.

Interesting Facts About Elina Svitolina

  • Started playing tennis because she was jealous that her brother was getting more attention from their father.
  • Prefers to travel with a couple of evening dresses while playing tennis, as she enjoys dressing up.
  • Is married to men’s tennis player and former world No 6 Gael Monfils
  • Is a huge foodie who enjoys trying different foods but strongly prefers her native Ukrainian food.
  • Enjoys football as well as other sports, some of which she played as a kid.
  • Was offered money to play for different countries but refused, professing love for her native country of Ukraine early on in her life.
  • Wears a pendant with the Ukrainian coat of arms at all times, as well as a small dog toy which she considers her talisman.

Elina Svitolina’s Social Media Presence and Fan Engagement

Svitolina has a notable presence on social media with several accounts. She is most active on Instagram where she has 1.7 million followers. 

She also has a fairly active couples Instagram with husband Gael Monfils, though it’s rather inactive these days.

Elina Svitolina Net Worth

It is not known exactly what the net worth of Elina Svitolina is, but she has won over $24 million in prize money. She has also had multiple endorsement deals over the years, some of which are still active. 

These days, though, she spends a lot of time doing charity work, especially as her country is going through a war that has left it devastated and many people displaced.

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Bren Gray

Bren has a lot of experience writing on various tennis related topics and will give us interesting news surrounding matches on the ATP and WTA tour as well as predictions and reviews.