Elina Svitolina of Ukraine extended her triumphant return to the Hologic WTA Tour by reaching the Round of 16 at Wimbledon on Friday.
Svitolina ended the resurgent run of American qualifier Sofia Kenin with a 7-6(3), 6-2 victory on Court No.3. Svitolina is into the second week at SW19 for the first time since her semifinal showing in 2019.
“I think today I just had to put fighting spirit in front of me, and just try to really be focused on myself and trying to fight for every single ball,” Svitolina said after her win.
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Svitolina will next face former World No.1 Victoria Azarenka in the fourth round. No.19 seed Azarenka defeated No.11 seed Daria Kasatkina 6-2, 6-4 earlier on Friday.
Azarenka has held all the cards in their head-to-head up to this point, winning all five of their previous encounters.
Back to winning ways: Svitolina was off tour for more than a year after giving birth to daughter Skaï in October of 2022. She returned to action this April and started slowly, losing four of her first five matches.
But Svitolina eventually regained the form that pulled her to No.3 in the world, winning the Strasbourg title and reaching the Roland Garros quarterfinals. She has now reached the second week at two consecutive majors, after being ranked outside the Top 1000 just three months ago.
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On Friday, Svitolina squared off against Kenin in a showdown between former Top 5 players on the comeback trail. Svitolina came into their match with a 3-2 head-to-head lead, but all of their previous matches had occurred in 2019.
Kenin, who won the 2020 Australian Open, is currently ranked No.128 and had to qualify for the main draw. However, Kenin also reclaimed some of her top form this week, notching a Top 10 upset of Coco Gauff in the first round, then beating Wang Xinyu in the second round.
Kenin used deft drop shots to build an early 3-1 lead in the first set, and she was a point away from 4-1 before Svitolina was able to erase a break point during a lengthy hold for 3-2. After dodging that peril, Svitolina surged, breaking Kenin at love to level the set at 3-3.
All five of their previous meetings had featured at least one tiebreak set, and this time was no exception. In the breaker, Svitolina took charge, following a drop shot with a forehand passing winner to lead 5-3….