Svitolina, letter to Monfils, magician and tennis player husband

A Ukrainian girl who sees on TV a French tennis player with impossible shots and his face printed on the cardboard of a Prince racket. A coffee that was supposed to last a short time ends up turning into a whole day walking around Paris. And then an improvised magic trick to get a kiss. The love story between Elina Svitolina and Gael Monfils seems like something out of a romantic comedy, but it reminds us how, sometimes, even reality can resemble a fairy tale. And in the long letter written to her daughter Skaï, Elina Svitolina describes the protagonist as follows: Gaël Monfils, on his farewell step to Roland Garros, a tightrope walker capable of lighting up stadiums, but also a husband, a father, “the best magician”. A love letter entrusted and published by The Players’ Tribune which is also the most intimate portrait of the French tennis player: “Dear Skaï, in a few days something really special will happen, right here in Paris. You are only three years old, so you are still a little too young to understand it. But I am writing this letter to you in the hope that one day you will read your mother’s thoughts and then you will understand. You will understand why your father is so important to so many people around the world. You will understand why his career was so extraordinary… and why the his last Roland Garros is such a beautiful moment”, begins Svitolina.

the magician

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To tell Monfils, Svitolina writes, we need to leave aside statistics and explanations: “With your father it’s very simple. You can show someone a single point of his, even a single shot… and he will immediately understand.” Because the Frenchman, according to his wife, succeeded in something that very few athletes know how to do: “He managed to make people feel something. Like when at a concert there is a perfect song, or at the cinema there is a perfect joke”. Not the most continuous, not even the most successful, but Monfils, according to Svitolina, was the one capable of making tennis a spectacle, of taking your breath away. “In the best moments tennis is also magic. And your father was the best magician.”

love

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The most irresistible part of the letter, however, is the telling of their story. As a young tennis player in Ukraine, Elina only knew Monfils through television and that Prince racket displayed in the sports center shop. “If they had told me that I would marry the boy on the package I would have replied: that racket is too heavy, and then I don’t believe it.” They only really met in 2017, in New York, on a training field: “But I was very shy, so we limited ourselves to saying hello.” A year later, Svitolina won the Finals in Singapore, flew to Paris to celebrate and published some photos. Monfils writes to her on Instagram, they see each other with friends, but he barely speaks to her for the whole evening. In the end, however, he accompanies her to the taxi and offers her a coffee the following day. “It’s hard to say if it was officially a date, men can be vague about these things.” It was supposed to be a quick, impromptu outing, but it ends up becoming a whole day walking around Paris. “Okay, maybe it really was a date.” And it’s great: “We had so much in common, both being immersed in a fast-paced life in the world of tennis, and it was nice to be able to talk candidly about that reality. I think you learn a lot about a person by how well they listen, and your dad was a really nice listener at the time. I felt like I could tell him anything.” Before saying goodbye, Monfils takes out a deck of cards. “Okay Elina, now I’ll show you a magic trick. What will you give me if I guess your card?”. She instinctively replies “a hug”, then corrects herself embarrassed: “A kiss on the cheek”. Of course Gaël guesses the card. A few weeks later, Svitolina writes, “we were practically already living together.” Three years later the wedding.

off the field

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For many, Monfils is the always smiling player, the showman capable of setting the public on fire. “Off the pitch it’s very different. It’s quite complex,” writes Elina. Thoughtful, quieter. The creativity used in tennis today he pours into the family: playing with his daughter, reading stories before bed, studying for the future and never failing to support his wife: “Sometimes the comfort I needed wasn’t that little. Just a few months after our wedding, so in the early stages of my pregnancy with you, there was a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Not only is it my home country, but it’s also where my family was at the time.” In a world where tennis players, she admits, learn to live with loneliness, Monfils in that period gave her the opposite feeling: “He made me feel part of a team.” In the end, the letter stops talking about tennis and focuses on the judgments Monfils has suffered: “Unfortunately, I believe that one of the reasons why your father has such a noble personality and such a human vision is that he had to face many difficulties in life — especially as a black man in France and in a sport like tennis.” Svitolina says that “When he was under 10, they wouldn’t let him into certain clubs because of the color of his skin.” And she thinks of her daughter: “When I think about the experiences you will have as a mixed-race child, and then as a mixed-race woman, I know how grateful I am that Gaël is your father. There is no one I trust more to help you navigate the world.”

identity

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Finally, Svitolina focuses on the pressure she suffered from her husband to change his style, become more serious, more “efficient”, perhaps enough to win a Slam. But for Svitolina, “Life isn’t just about adding up results. It’s about who we are and who we become along the way.” Monfils’ legacy therefore lies not only in numbers – Svitolina cites the 13 ATP titles, the 21 consecutive years with at least one Slam victory, the four participations in the Olympics representing France, the title at the age of 38, which made him the oldest player in the history of the circuit to win one – but in having always remained true to himself. “I hope people say: Gaël Monfils, there was no other like him. Gaël Monfils, he meant so much to tennis… but also something much deeper than tennis. Gaël Monfils, he remained true to himself.”