Bravo, Elina!

Ukrainian girl for the first time wins the most prestigious junior tennis championships.

Ukraine has received yet another tennis star, with Elina SVITOLINA winning the French Open Tennis Championship at the Roland Garros stadium in Paris on Sunday June 6 (the first one was Andrii Medvedev in 1991).

In the semifinals this girl from Kharkiv confidently defeated Silvia Njiric from Croatia (6:2, 7:5). In the finals she beat Ons Jabeur (Tunisia): 6:2, 7:5.

“It’s so amazing, so good! What happened today will change my life,” UKRINFORM quotes Svitolina as saying at a press conference after the game.

This is the first serious competition in the girl’s tennis career and the first victory won by Ukraine at a competition of such caliber over the years of independence. Needless to say, all this makes 15-year-old Svitolina’s victory even more important and spectacular, considering that this championship is meant for players starting at 18 years of age. She is the first post-Soviet athlete to win a junior tennis championship after her Estonian counterpart Kaia Kanepi tried to win the title in 2001.

This victory has placed Svitolina on the world’s top-five junior list. Her success has been praised by the Tennis Federation of Ukraine. Its Vice President Yurii SAPRONOV said in an interview with tenis.ua that it has been a long time since Ukraine has enjoyed such success: “The meets in the finals are always the most nerve-fraying and complicated ones, so that the players show spectacular results very seldom. Elina was no exception. Her adversary was very strong and Jabeur was supported by the audience, so the ratio was something like 1:100, but a game isn’t won by public support but by a player’s skill, and Elina showed this for all to see.”

Needless to say, Svitolina’s relatives and friends are jubilant. Her mother, Olena Svitolina, told journalists she hadn’t expected her daughter to win this particular competition: “There were so many strong players and defeating them was easier said than done. Elina, however, prepared for every game as though it were the most important, crucial one. That was how she made it to the finals, step by step. I’m happy to know that my daughter is the winner. It’s worth living to experience such moments of joy.”

One can only once again greet the young Ukrainian tennis star and wish her the best of success.