INDIAN WELLS, United States, March 12, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Elina Svitolina
toppled fourth-ranked American Jessica Pegula to reach the Indian Wells
quarter-finals on Tuesday, one more little victory for her beleaguered home
country of Ukraine.

"I feel like I need to play well," the 30-year-old said. "I feel like it's
something that I try to do for my country -- you know, to see my flag raising
and to see the tick with the win from my country."

Three years on from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, tensions have mounted in
recent weeks -- notably as US President Donald Trump feuded publicly with
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House Oval Office.

Trump has since frozen military aid to Ukraine and suspended its intelligence
sharing with Kyiv, emboldening Russia to step up attacks.

Amid it all, Svitolina said she had received an outpouring of support from
American friends and fans.

She offered her thanks in a social media post, and said since the February 28
falling out between Trump and Zelensky, the support had increased.

"I feel like since that meeting in the Oval Office, I got a lot of messages
of support from the American people and also, you know, a lot of people here
when I arrived at the tournament, just giving the love and support to
Ukrainians for people back at home.

"So, yes, it's just based on personal experience that I had here. Also the
massive support that I got taking into consideration that I played three
American girls back to back to back."

Svitolina, who has a two-year-old daughter with French tennis player Gael
Monfils, says she has become a master of compartmentalizing as she tries to
keep up with developments at home, spend time with her young family on the
road and keep in touch with her grandmother and other family in Odesa.

She travels there periodically to spend time with family and do work for her
charitable foundation.

"I try to really split the time where I'm looking at the news. I'm checking
the news still every day, couple times a day, especially right now where
there is a lot of news coming.

"There is time for that and there is time also for tennis. There is time for
training and recovery and just completely switch off from everything. Also
time with my family. You know, I have my daughter here.

"You know, Gael is here also. So, you know, it's nice to sometimes switch off
completely from what's going on."

Talking to family in Ukraine is hard, she said, "because I know that they are
not going to be good news. It's been a very long time that there is only bad
news coming from Ukraine."