Svitolina: It seemed to me that someone shot me in the back. There was nothing I could do

Ukrainian tennis player Elina Svitolina spoke about the details of the injury she received in the game 1/8 finals of Australian Open 2024 with Linda Noskova.

“I had a spasm, or I don’t know exactly what it was, but it was a shooting pain that I felt in the first game, during the last two points. There was nothing I could do. Completely blocked my back. Of course, it’s very sad…”

“I’ve already played a little tennis at this tournament, so you know, by the fourth round, sometimes I feel a little bit stuck somewhere. Nothing special. There didn’t seem to be any problems before. I don’t think I’ve ever had such shooting pain. I’ve had some back injuries before where I just felt tired the day after a match, but this really came out of nowhere. It felt like someone shot me in the back.”

“I hope it’s a short-term problem. Don’t know. Maybe a spasm or something else. Hopefully I’ll be back training maybe in a week. Of course, I’ll have a long flight and that doesn’t help. In some ways I’ll have to take it one day at a time, recover, get a scan as soon as I get home and move on. I hope nothing serious happens to me.”

“How do I feel now? Badly. The back was simply blocked. The lower back is completely blocked. Therefore, yes, it is very painful for me to even walk and turn around. I can’t move from side to side. It’s a very strange feeling.”

The first racket of Ukraine withdrew from the match against 19-year-old Linda Noskova due to a back injury. Even in the first set, with the score 0:2, Elina asked for a medical time-out, but after losing in the next game, Svitolina decided to end the match.

Two representatives of Ukraine will play in the quarter finals of the Australian Open – Dayana Yastremskaya and Marta Kostyuk.