One of tennis's best-known couples is parting. Elina Svitolina announced on Monday that her marriage to Gaël Monfils is ending after five years, calling the post 'the most difficult thing I have ever had to share' — while insisting that 'our marriage is ending, but our family is not.'
The pair began dating in 2018 and married in Geneva on July 16, 2021. Their daughter, Skai, was born on October 15, 2022, and Svitolina said she will always come first, with the two co-parenting 'side by side' and 'no one to blame' for the split.
Svitolina linked the decision to a difficult personal period shaped by Russia's war in her native Ukraine, describing sleepless nights, self-doubt and 'slowly losing myself,' and saying she needs to rediscover herself. She stressed that Monfils had loved and supported her through both her greatest joys and her darkest moments.
Now ranked world No. 6 in the reports carrying the announcement, Svitolina had already cut short her 2025 season citing psychological fatigue and exhaustion. Monday's statement asks for privacy as the family adjusts, and closes the public chapter of a relationship that had been one of the sport's most followed.
