The world No 6 Elina Svitolina has announced she has separated from her husband Ga\u00ebl Monfils.<\/p>\n
In an emotional Instagram post, the 32-year-old Ukrainian opened up about the mental toll of Russia\u2019s war against her country, describing sleepless nights and self-doubt. Svitolina said she had come to realise she needed to rediscover herself and could no longer do so within her marriage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the most difficult thing I have ever had to share,\u201d she wrote. \u201cEveryone knows how much Ukraine means to me. What I have rarely spoken about is what the war has done to me inside. With time, I came to understand that I need to find my way back to myself and that I cannot do that within our marriage.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is the hardest truth I have ever had to face and the hardest thing I have ever had to tell the person I love. Ga\u00ebl listened. He has respected what I need with a strength and grace I will never forget.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fans recently learned that Ga\u00ebl Monfils would not be playing in what was supposed to be his final professional tournament, the Paris Masters, which begins later this month. Photograph: Anne-Christine Poujoulat\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Svitolina \u2013 a four-time grand slam semi-finalist \u2013 and the French former world No 6 Monfils, 40, were married in 2021 and have a four-year-old daughter, Skai.<\/p>\n
\u201cSkai will always come first,\u201d Svitolina added. \u201cOur marriage is ending, but our family is not. Please know that there is no one to blame here. There are only two people who loved each other deeply and a story that is changing shape.\u201d<\/p>\n
Monfils has seemingly brought forward his retirement from the sport, which was expected to come following a farewell outing at the Paris Masters which begins on 31 October. It emerged last week that the Frenchman, who won 13 career titles, is now featured on the International Tennis<\/a> Integrity Agency\u2019s list of retired players.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The world No 6 Elina Svitolina has announced she has separated from her husband Ga\u00ebl Monfils. In an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":807529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-807528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=807528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/807529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}