Elina Svitolina won 17 tournaments throughout her career. She won a bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics. In 2018, she won the WTA Finals, and a year later she reached the final. She reached the Grand Slam semi-finals three times – twice at Wimbledon (2019, 2023) and once at the US Open (2019).
Svitolina had an offer from Russia
Since the beginning of her career, Svitolina has proudly represented Ukraine. Her successes contributed to the popularization of tennis in the country. Today, Ukraine has five tennis players in the top 100 of the WTA rankings.
Svitolina is certainly a kind of ambassador of Ukraine in the world. But in the past there was an opportunity to represent another country, as the tennis player herself told.
The 30-year-old admitted that Russia, which attacked Ukraine in February 2022, was interested in bringing the player to its side. The Russians allegedly offered quite large amounts of money for performances under her flag. The amount is approximately half a million dollars. Svitolina, of course, rejected this proposal.
– There was an offer to play under the Russian flag, but I did not take it into account. They promised $500,000 a year. Other countries also submitted offers. They proposed programs that invested in my future and development in tennis, but on the condition that I represent their national colors – she revealed in an interview with the online newspaper “Ukrajinska Pravda”.
– It was a long time ago. For me, there was never any question that I could change the country. When I started my career, I had full conditions for development in Kharkov, she added.
Switloin's last match was on August 30 in the 1/16 finals of the US Open. She lost to Coco Gauff in three sets 6:3, 3:6, 3:6. Shortly afterwards, she announced that this was the end of her appearances this season. She wanted to focus on fully healing her foot injury and preparing for the new season.