Sports
Elina Svitolina: Ukraine's unbreakable spirit is a big motivation for me
By now, nearly two years after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there is a familiar rhythm to Elina Svitolina’s days.
The missile attacks from Russia generally happen overnight, so in the morning, just after she opens her eyes, she grabs her phone to see where the bombs have fallen. There is a call to her grandmother in Odessa. No matter how many times Svitolina has asked, her grandmother has refused to leave her home and her cat.
There is time with her 15-month-old daughter, Skai. There are many hours of training. There are phone calls related to her own business, and many more related to fundraising and relief efforts for Ukraine, through her work with United24, Ukraine’s main war relief fundraising organization, the one her country’s president called to request her help with. Sometimes these stretch into the night and don’t finish until after she has put Skai to bed and had dinner with her husband, the French tennis player Gael Monfils.
It’s a lot, and yet Svitolina, the comeback player of the year in women’s tennis in 2023, insists she is lucky. She has her parents and her in-laws helping with Skai, and many others helping with the relief efforts and her other pursuits. And then there are all the soldiers, people she grew up with, doing the really hard work.
“I have a lot of friends, male friends, and they’re all at the front line,” the 29-year-old Svitolina says during a video interview from Monaco, where she was getting ready for the 2024 season.
There are tennis players who won more matches and earned more money in 2023 than Svitolina, and players who achieved more acclaim. But it’s hard to imagine a player having a more shocking and impactful year, a stunning ride from the minor leagues back to Centre Court at Wimbledon during which both tennis fans and those who paid little attention to the sport blanketed her with unique and unbridled adulation.
Svitolina was hugely popular at Wimbledon (Julian Finney/Getty Images)
Were the roars for Carlos Alcaraz, the men’s Wimbledon champion, as loud as those for Svitolina during her run to the semi-finals at the All England Club, or to the quarter-finals of the French Open at Roland Garros weeks earlier? Definitely not.
Here was a different Svitolina, maybe even a better one than the Svitolina who rose to No 3 in the world in 2017 and won the WTA Tour finals the next year. That Svitolina didn’t have the steeliness, or the drive, or the purpose of this one, because during those few days last July, when Svitolina was the biggest story in the sport, or maybe in any sport, there was a new surety to those forehands and backhands she lasered down the lines in the tightest moments against the Grand Slam champions Victoria Azarenka and Iga Swiatek, the world No 1. There was a kind of serenity about her as she floated from one match and moment to the next.
“This whole motivation around me, with different kinds of projects with my foundation, with United24, with all the people behind me, I got enormous support from Ukrainians, but also around the world and it really motivated me to go for more, to really push myself,” she says. “I found myself in the quarter-final of Roland Garros, then in the semi-final of Wimbledon, playing great tennis and being super motivated and with a fresh mind and fresh energy.”
No one saw this coming. Here was a player coming back from giving birth, with so much of her attention focused on motherhood and on the trauma that her family and country were enduring. No one in the sport envisioned Svitolina shooting up the rankings so quickly, if ever.
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Well, actually, that’s not completely true.
Last January, three months after Skai was born, Svitolina reached out to Raemon Sluiter, a well-regarded Dutch tennis coach, to see if he would consider taking her on. Where others might have seen the challenges of a postpartum comeback, Sluiter saw an opportunity. There was no question about Svitolina’s raw talent. No one rises to No 3 in the world and wins the season-ending championship by accident. But there was another dynamic at play that made working with Svitolina so enticing for Sluiter.
With the tennis off-season so brief, players rarely get a chunk of time to really train and practise, to consider making changes to how they play.
“If you really want to change something, you have to cut your season short,” Sluiter said during a recent interview.
At the time of the initial call, Svitolina did not plan on returning to competition for another three months. Sluiter saw this as a golden chance for her to evolve. He told her not to worry about her busy life off the court. All she needed, he said, was to be dedicated and focused on tennis when she was training.
“I would take 30 minutes of quality training over two hours of just going through the motions,” Sluiter said. “It’s about being intentional and very present.”
If Svitolina was tired, or feeling overwhelmed, he told her to take the day off. Given everything else going on in Svitolina’s life, Sluiter knew this was a player and a person unlike any other.
Flash forward a few more months. It’s October and Svitolina’s 2023 tennis ride has come to an end. The pain from a stress fracture in her ankle, which began during the French Open, intensified during Wimbledon and became debilitating during the North American hardcourt swing, forced her to end her season after the U.S. Open.
Svitolina celebrates winning match point against Darya Kasatkina at Roland Garros (Julian Finney/Getty Images)
This is when Svitolina told Monfils she wanted to visit Ukraine. Understandably protective, her husband was scared and wary. “Even though it’s my homeland, it’s still tough for him to realize that I want to go back, I want to go to the country where the war is,” she says.
Monfils ultimately understood and, in November, Svitolina took the arduous trip involving the 10-hour train rides to Ukraine for 10 days, first to see her grandmother in Odessa, then to Kyiv and Dnipro, where she met with government officials and caught up with old friends, then to Kharkiv, which is just 20km (around 12 miles) from the Russian border.
Svitolina moved there when she was 12 to train and pursue her career as a pro tennis player. She went to see her old coaches and the club where she played her first tournaments and to be with the kids who are training there now and continuing with their lives amid the war.
“It’s such a big motivation for me to see that in Ukraine life continues; they are having this unbreakable spirit that nothing can really bother them, nothing can break their spirit,” she said.
“This is really a huge motivation for me when I am playing a tough match. When I’m facing tough moments in my life, I always remind myself of the people that have to deal with war, that have to deal with the loss of their homes and, you know, just trying to really survive, to live a normal life. And of course, the soldiers, the men and women who are defending our country, who took the weapons in their hands.”
After she returned home, and as her ankle healed, Svitolina got back to work. Once more, Sluiter saw the injury as something of an opportunity, giving Svitolina an extended off-season to refine and develop her game without the pressure to return to competition.
Sluiter didn’t prescribe anything radical, rather, merely doing what she began to do last year to an even greater degree.
“She can approach matches with a more aggressive mindset and try to control matches more and play them more on her terms than on the opponent’s terms,” he said.
Monfils and Svitolina are married (Pascal Le Segretain/SC Pool – Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)
By mid-December, Svitolina was able to play “90 per cent pain-free”, though she remained concerned about how her ankle would feel on the hard courts of Auckland’s ASB Classic, her main tuneup before the Australian Open, and how sharp she might be. Coming back from childbirth, she largely struggled to win during the first six weeks. She found her form in late May in Strasbourg, the week before the French Open.
So far, so good.
With Skai in tow for her first big tennis road trip, Svitolina won her first four matches in Auckland, two against former Grand Slam champions, Carolina Wozniacki and Emma Raducanu, before losing a tight final to Coco Gauff, winner of the most recent Grand Slam event, who won 6-7(4), 6-3, 6-3.
“I’m playing more freely,” Svitolina said last month. “Before, I was a tennis player from Ukraine. But right now, it’s very different. Different motivation, different goals. And for me, it’s important every single day to take the opportunity, to give 100 per cent on each practice, each match, and do everything that is in my power.”
(Top photo: Hannah Peters/Getty Images)
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Tiger Woods was released from jail Friday night after he was arrested earlier in the day on a DUI charge following a car crash in Florida.
In a mugshot released hours after his arrest, Woods’ eyes appeared bloodshot, as he donned a blue polo inside the Martin County Jail in Florida.
Woods was seen leaving the jail in the passenger seat of a black SUV after his release on bail late Friday, according to The Associated Press.
Martin County Sheriff John Budensiek confirmed in a news conference that Woods was traveling at “a high rate of speed” when his vehicle collided with another car, resulting in his vehicle rolling over onto the driver’s side.
Tiger Woods was booked into Martin County, Florida, jail on March 27, 2026. (AP)
Authorities said Woods “exemplified signs of impairment.” He blew “triple-zeroes” for alcohol but refused a urine test.
“DUI investigators came to the scene here, and Mr. Woods did exemplify signs of impairment. They did several tests on him. Of course, he did explain the injuries and the surgeries that he had. We did take that into account, but they did do some in-depth roadside tests,” Budensiek added.
“We really weren’t suspicious of alcohol being involved in this case, and that proved to be true at the jail. … But when it came time for us to ask for a urinalysis test, he refused. And, so, he’s been charged with DUI, with property damage and refusal to submit to a lawful test.”
Woods was spotted on the phone after the crash, wearing navy blue shorts.
Woods was charged with DUI, property damage and refusal to submit to a test, all misdemeanor charges. No one was injured, authorities said. Woods was alone in the car and crawled out of the passenger door after the crash.
Tiger Woods was driven from the Martin County Jail after being arrested for driving under the influence following a car crash on March 27, 2026, in Stuart, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
VANESSA, KAI TRUMP TAKE IN TIGER WOODS’ RETURN TO GOLF AT TGL FINALS
“This could’ve been a lot worse,” Budensiek noted.
President Donald Trump commented on the arrest of his “very close friend.”
“I feel so badly. He’s got some difficulty,” Trump said. “There was an accident, and that’s all I know. Very close friend of mine. He’s an amazing person, an amazing man, but some difficulty.”
Woods has not commented on the arrest.
Tiger Woods was arrested on a DUI charge after getting into a car crash on Friday. (Associated Press)
Woods currently is dating Trump’s ex-daughter-in-law, Vanessa, whose daughter, Kai, is set to play college golf in Miami next week.
This is Woods’ second DUI arrest within the last decade. In 2017, he was taken into custody, also in Jupiter Island, after taking prescription drugs and being asleep behind the wheel of a running car at 3 a.m.
In 2021, he got into a wreck that resulted in serious leg injuries that kept him off the golf course for the entire year.
Golfer Tiger Woods stands by his overturned vehicle in Jupiter Island, Fla., Friday, March 27, 2026. (Jason Oteri/AP)
Woods made his return to competitive golf earlier this week in the TGL championship after rupturing his Achilles just before last year’s Masters (this year’s tournament is in less than two weeks). Woods has not appeared on the links since the 2024 PGA Championship, in which he missed the cut.
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For the second time in less than a week, Luka Doncic faces a one-game suspension because of technical foul accumulation.
Only a week after Doncic’s 16th technical foul was rescinded by the NBA, the Lakers superstar picked up another one in a 116-99 win over the Brooklyn Nets on Friday and is in line to miss the Lakers’ next game against the Washington Wizards on Monday.
In the third quarter with the Lakers trailing by one against the lowly Nets (17-57), Doncic was called for an offensive foul against Nic Claxton as the Lakers (48-26) were trying to inbound the ball after a dunk by Ziaire Williams. After the Lakers turnover, Williams and Doncic appeared to exchange words with Doncic pushing Williams aside with one hand. Williams then flailed his arms behind him and slapped Doncic in the throat.
“He was yelling in my face three times,” said Doncic, who finished with 41 points, eight rebounds and three assists in the win. “I just wanted to get out of there. … I didn’t even talk. I just wanted to get out of there. And they said I pushed. My push was exaggerated, which was obviously not [the case].”
Both were assessed technical fouls with 5:12 remaining in the third quarter, and Williams’ hit was reviewed for a possible flagrant, although it was not upgraded.
The NBA requires players to sit out for one game without pay after their 16th technical foul of the season. But Doncic avoided that fate after the NBA rescinded the foul that would have forced him to the bench for a critical road game last week. Lakers coach JJ Redick said the Lakers will try to appeal Doncic’s latest foul but he did not see what happened on the play.
Last week, Doncic avoided a suspension after the NBA rescinded the foul that would have forced him to the bench for a critical road game against the Eastern Conference-leading Detroit Pistons. Doncic is slated to miss Monday’s game against the Wizards, who have lost 17 of their last 18 games and have the third-worst record in the Eastern Conference (17-56).
Lakers star Luka Doncic reacts to a referee’s call during the second half Friday against the Brooklyn Nets at Crypto.com Arena.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Doncic picked up his first 16th technical foul last week against the Orlando Magic after getting into an argument with Orlando forward Goga Bitadze. Doncic claimed Bitadze directed a vulgar comment about Doncic’s family in Serbian toward the Lakers star guard. Bitadze refuted the story, saying it was actually Doncic who said the curse word out loud first and that he was only repeating what he heard.
The NBA rescinded both fouls upon review the following day.
Doncic, the NBA’s leading scorer, has scored 30 points or more in 12 consecutive games, the longest such streak in his career. He has 43 30-point games this season, tying Elgin Baylor and Jerry West for sixth-most in a season by a Lakers player. He has scored 40 points or more in the last 12 games.
Against the Nets, Austin Reaves finished with 26 points, eight rebounds and five assists and LeBron James had 14 points, eight assists and six rebounds.
Before the game, Redick said the Nets game would be like playing on the road since the Lakers had spent almost two weeks away from Crypto.com Arena and had returned home in the wee hours of Thursday morning from Indianapolis.
Lakers guard Austin Reaves celebrates after shooting a three-pointer against the Nets in the second half Friday.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
The challenge was to find the energy to play, which wasn’t a problem for Doncic, who had 24 points in the first half. Doncic was nine for 15 from the field in the first half and four for six from three-point range in 20 minutes. He finished shooting 15 for 25 from the field as the Lakers shot 54% from the floor. They shot 44% (11 for 25) from three-point range.
That the Lakers were facing a Nets team with the second-worst record in the NBA didn’t matter.
That the Lakers were facing a Nets team had lost nine of its last 10 games didn’t matter.
That the Lakers were facing a Nets team that’s last in the league in scoring (106.3 points per game) didn’t matter.
Lakers center Deandre Ayton, left, blocks a shot by Brooklyn Nets guard Nolan Traore in the first half Friday.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
What mattered to the Lakers was finding a way to win as the regular season winds down.
“I felt like we were a step slow,” Redick said. “And I told the guys at halftime, ‘This is our seventh game of the road trip. Anytime you come back, there’s a day in between, that’s just you’re in another city until you can get adjusted to the time zone and you get a couple days break.’ So the next two [off] days will be good for us.”
Notes: Lakers broadcast analyst Stu Lantz missed Friday night’s game against the Nets because of health issues. Derek Fisher, who won five NBA titles with the Lakers, took over Lantz’s role for the game. Public address announcer Lawrence Tanter also missed the game because of a health matter. Jason Barquero filled in for Lantz. “The entire Lakers organization is wishing Lawrence all the best in his recovery, and we look forward to welcoming him back soon,” the team said in a statement.
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Tiger Woods was involved in a car crash on Jupiter Island in Florida on Friday, according to multiple reports.
The Martin County Sheriff’s Office told ESPN that the crash happened on Jupiter Island. Woods’ condition was not immediately known.
Woods competed in the TGL championship earlier this week with his girlfriend, Vanessa Trump, and her daughter, Kai, in the stands. It was his return to competitive golf after rupturing his Achilles last year, just ahead of the Masters.
Tiger Woods of Jupiter Links Golf Club looks on before the match against the Los Angeles Golf Club at SoFi Center on March 23, 2026, in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. (Adam Glanzman/TGL/TGL Golf via Getty Images)
The 15-time major winner, five of which have come at Augusta, was noncommittal about playing at this year’s Masters. President Donald Trump said on “The Five” on Thursday that he would be at Augusta but not play.
Woods has had trouble behind the wheel in the past. In 2021, he got into a wreck that resulted in serious leg injuries that kept him off the golf course for months.
This is a breaking story. Check back for more updates.
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