A true tennis love story played out at Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.
Madison Williams | Aug 31, 2023
The U.S. Open is one of the biggest stages tennis has to offer. As such, it requires the utmost focus from players solely on the match at hand. That is, unless your significant other is playing on another court close by.
This is exactly what happened on Thursday to Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina and France’s Gaël Monfils, who have been married since 2021. Svitolina played first on Thursday, but her second-round match vs. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova went into three sets, forcing her to potentially miss the beginning of her husband’s match.
Monfils’s match was against No. 8-seeded Andrey Rublev, so Svitolina had to make sure she knew what was going on, even though she was competing to stay alive in the tournament herself.
“Can you tell me if my husband started his match on Grandstand?” Svitolina asked the umpire during one of her changeovers.
Svitolina went on to win her match, despite the momentary break to check on her husband. She later explained that she needed a moment to regain herself as she was in a tough spot in the match.
“I was just trying to get a little motivation from him,” Svitolina said. “I know he’s playing out there. … I was just thinking about him a little bit.”
Svitolina’s match ended during Monfils’s second set, so hopefully she made it across Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in time to see her husband’s second-round match.