Tokyo 2020: Elina Svitolina Wins Ukraine's First Olympic Tennis Medal

Ukraine earned its first Olympic medallist in tennis by Elina Svitolina on Saturday. She won the bronze medal.

Tennis player Elina Svitolina has set a new record for the country of Ukraine after spending almost two-and-a-half hours on court to secure a podium finish in the sport at Olympics. Before this Ukraine did not have a medal in the sport of Tennis. She won against Kazakh Elena Rybakina. The scores through the match were 1-6, 7-6 (7/5), 6-4.

Elina Svitolina is a 26-year-old Ukrainian professional tennis player. She recently got married to French player Gael Monfils before participating in the Tokyo Olympics. She is a former world number three. She came through a lengthy final game to win on her seventh match point. The Tennis player also reeled off five games in a row for the historic win.

Who is Elina Svitolina?

• Elina Svitolina is a Tennis Player from Ukraine.
• She was born in Odesa to Ukrainian parents. Elina noticed as a child that her brother got a a lot of attention while growing up due to this Tennis performance and decided to pursue it as a career.
• She holds 15 WTA singles titles. 2018 WTA Finals and three of five Premier 5-level tournaments are a few of them.
• She reached her first Grand Slam quarterfinal but was defeated by Ana Ivanovic. She later reached her first Grand Slam semifinal at the 2019 Wimbledon Championships.
• Elina Svitolina had played against the Tennis players like Serena Williams, Ana Ivanovic, Venus Williams, Noami Osaka, Garbiñe Muguruza, Caroline Wozniacki, Simona Halep, Petra Kvitová, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Francesca Schiavone and also emerged victoriously.
• She has won both the Istanbul Cups of 2014 and 2015 back to back.
• In an earlier interview, Elina spoke about becoming calmer for the sport and said, "I'm more open with my coach and also with Gaël about tennis and my feelings. This really changed, I think, for the past, I don't know, nine, 10 months. I just always love the way that he pushes me to be better, and I also try to motivate him to be a better person, a better tennis player. I think this is the way that it has to be, and you have to really support each other and push for better results."