Svitolina Has the Power Now

By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Thursday August 31, 2023

What’s up with Elina Svitolina? Her ranking, for one.

And… her power!

Having won 11 of 13 matches at the Grand Slam since playing her first Grand Slam as a mother at Roland-Garros this spring, the 28-year-old Ukrainian continues to climb.

She started the season well outside the Top 200 and is now firmly inside the Top-30 and looking like a Top-10 player. Credit a new coach, and newfound aggressiveness.

Svitolina says she always wanted to shed her reputation as a defensive-minded player, and since she came back from her hiatus, she has done just that.

“I think different things changed,” she said on Thursday after edging past Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, 5-7, 6-4, 6-4. “I have this experience from all the years that I played on tour. I was always looking to improve my serve, to improve the power on my shots, to strike the ball more cleaner, some technical things on my forehand.”

When Svitolina started her comeback after giving birth to her baby girl Skai, she had time to work on elements of her game that had previously neglected. She also made the wise decision to work with coach Raemon Sluiter, who has made a significant impression on her.

“I had three months starting from January until my first match where we were just working on my game,” She said. “Also, fresh opinion. Raemon is a great coach. He explains very easy. Almost feels like he’s not doing anything, but this is like in a way really natural and very good. I was just analyzing, trying to think what he really brought into my game. This is really natural because we talk about the game, we try to analyze few things here and there.

After years of relying on her world-class defense and consistency, Svitolina has added an aggressive element to her game, and it’s helping her have success at the Slams.

“In the end it really comes naturally,” she said. “So I’m happy that there is improvement. I always have really high standard of how I see my game, how I want to play. Sometimes maybe it’s not playing on my head because I’m too hard on myself and getting down.

“Now I’m happy with the balance that I have. These matches, like today, didn’t play well but I fought and got the win.”

Svitolina will face either Jessica Pegula or Patricia Maria Tig in the third round on Saturday. She has reached the quarterfinas (2021) or better (semifinals 2021) in her last two appearances in New York and owns a 21-9 lifetime record in Flushing…