New Delhi, Oct 20 (IANS) World No.6 Elina Svitolina has issued a clarification to her initial post announcing the separation from fellow tennis star Gael Monfils.
Ukraine’s Svitolina had highlighted that she was having “sleepless nights, doubts and the feeling of slowly losing myself” due to the Russia-Ukraine war. She did not blame her French husband, Gael, for anything; instead, she stated that he stood with her always and that she needed to “find my way back to myself” as she announced the separation.
The Ukrainian has now clarified her separation announcement, stating that everything is “not always possible” to explain in a single post and also stating that there was more than one reason behind the separation.
“I just want to clarify my previous post a little, because I realised that not everyone, especially my international audience, fully understood what I was trying to say,” Svitolina wrote in an Instagram post.
“In that post, I shared only one of the reasons that influenced my decision and made me reflect on my life and my future. But the truth is, there’s so much more to it, and it was never just about one thing.
She highlighted the mental breakdown of the war she faced. “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.
“At some point, I simply realised 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,” she added.
Just like in the previous post, Svitolina stated that she loves and respects her husband. “I love and respect my husband very much. And I will always love and appreciate him for the person he is. That’s exactly why it was so important for me to be honest, both with him and with myself,” the 32-year-old said.
There were reports that the separation decision had abruptly ended Monfils’ career, who was already in his last season but wanted to retire in front of his home fans at the Paris Masters from October 31.
The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) had confirmed that the Frenchman was added to their “retired athletes” list on October 5.
A French publication, L’Equipe, stated that the timing of his abrupt departure from the sport is linked to the separation and that the news “hit him like a ton of bricks, and tennis, which he had often experienced as a kind of gentle madness, suddenly lost all meaning”.
Svitolina also opened up on the same. “It’s not always possible to explain everything behind such personal and difficult decisions in a single post. And 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 wrote.
“I just hope this helps you understand a little better what I was trying to say, but please be kind and understanding; this is incredibly tough for us both right now,” Svitolina added.
In the previous statement, Svitolina had confirmed that while the marriage is ending, the family is not. They got married in July 2021 and were blessed with a daughter in October 2022, named Skai. “Our marriage is ending, but our family is not. We will always be her parents, side by side, at every step of her life,” she wrote in her Monday statement.
–IANS
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