b. 1994
Elina Svitolina
Tennis player, Olympic bronze in Tokyo
Before her, Ukraine had never won an Olympic medal in tennis. Elina Svitolina took bronze in Tokyo, won the 2018 WTA Finals and rose to world No. 3. In 2026 she became the first Ukrainian woman to win 20 WTA titles.
Key accomplishments
- Bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics (2021), Ukraine’s first Olympic medal in tennis
- Winner of the WTA Finals (2018)
- World No. 3 (2017); 20 WTA titles as of October 2026, the first Ukrainian woman to reach that mark
- Four Grand Slam semifinals: Wimbledon (2019, 2023), US Open (2019), Australian Open (2026)
- Founder of the Elina Svitolina Foundation (2019); UNITED24 ambassador (since 2022)
A medal Ukraine had never won
Elina Svitolina was born in 1994 in Odesa. In the summer of 2021, at the Tokyo Olympics (postponed by a year because of the pandemic), she won the bronze medal in women’s singles. It was Ukraine’s first Olympic medal in tennis. At the previous Games, in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, Svitolina reached the quarterfinals.
World No. 3
Svitolina climbed to No. 3 in the WTA world rankings in 2017. The next year she won the WTA Finals, the tournament that brings together the best players of the season. In 2019 she reached the semifinals of two Grand Slams: Wimbledon and the US Open.
A second wind
Svitolina took a break from tennis in 2022 and became a mother. Back on court in 2023, she won the tournament in Strasbourg within four months, and that summer reached the Wimbledon semifinals again. In 2026 she made her first Australian Open semifinal. In May 2026 she won Rome for the third time (after 2017 and 2018), beating three top-five players on the way. It was her 20th WTA title, a mark no Ukrainian woman had reached before.
Tennis for Ukraine
Svitolina set up a charity foundation in 2019; it develops tennis in Ukraine and supports young athletes. Since 2022 she has been an ambassador of the UNITED24 fundraising platform and of Bring Kids Back UA, an initiative that helps bring deported Ukrainian children home.
Why it matters today
Elina Svitolina showed that a Ukrainian player can stay among the world’s best for years, and she carried Ukraine’s name onto tennis’s biggest stages. Her return to the court after becoming a mother proved that a great career doesn’t have to end where a family begins. Her foundation helps the next generations of Ukrainian players, and as an ambassador of UNITED24 and Bring Kids Back UA she helps keep the world from forgetting Ukraine during the war. Every girl in Ukraine who picks up a racket today can see how far it is possible to go.
