Elina Svitolina hasn’t played a lot of tennis so far this year, and she won’t play at the 2022 Roland Garros either due to a back injury that is still bothering her.
Svitolina’s 2022 campaign started at the Adelaide International, where she faced Anastasia Gasanova in the opening round of the event. The match didn’t go so well for the Ukrainian, who was beaten in three sets by the Russian.
The next match Svitolina played this year came against Madison Keys at the other tournament held in Adelaide, but that one didn’t go that well for her, either. Keys beat the Ukrainian 6-2 6-4, as she was still searching for her best tennis.
She played her next match at the Australian Open, and that’s when she finally won a few matches. She won two before losing to Victoria Azarenka in the third round of the opening Grand Slam tournament of the season.
Since then, Svitolina stood on the courts a couple of more times, but mostly with mixed results. Her most recent event was the Miami Open, where she lost in her first match there again, and since then, fans haven’t gotten a chance to see her in action.
A back injury has been plaguing her for a while, and as much as she tried to get back onto the courts, the Ukrainian wasn’t able to get back to the courts. She missed the Italian Open in Rome, which was very tough for her.
She is a two-time champion, having won in 2017 and 2018. She reached the quarter-finals the last two times she competed at the WTA 1000 tournament.
It’s a surface where she’s done really well over the years and generally plays well. Now she will have to miss the Roland Garros as well, which is also far from ideal.
Svitolina hasn’t indicated when she’ll be back on the tennis courts, and she likely doesn’t even know because back injuries are notoriously tricky to overcome. After all, they can flare up at any time. Rest is the best option, and she chose that right now.