Elina Svitolina admits her career has hit a rocky road after becoming the highest casualty of Wimbledon so far.
The third seed was dumped out in the second round by Magda Linette, who posted a career highlight 6-3 6-4 win in little over an hour.
The 26-year-old Ukrainian, who had hopes of a Centre Court date on Saturday before watching her country play England in Euro 2020, was a semi-finalist at SW19 in 2019 and followed that up with a run to the last four in the US Open a couple of months later.
Top-10 toppled 👏@MagdaLinette notches the biggest win of her career, defeating No.3 seed Elina Svitolina in straight sets#Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/i3a1Okwd8Y — Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 1, 2021
But she has fallen on hard times since the coronavirus pandemic struck, making it past the fourth round in just one of the five grand slams played since.
"When you play a grand slam, it is all of the time a lot, different kind of pressures," she said. "Sometimes it's tough to handle, but it is part of the job, is the part of the grand slam.
"You have to be strong, try to be good to yourself and try to overcome the fears, the difficulties.
"Today probably I was not fresh mentally to do that. I have been on the tour for years now and been in different kind of situations. But right now I wouldn't say it's very smooth times in my career right now.
"For sure, it's tough time, but I have been in these situations in my career a few times. And it's how you come back, how you bounce back from tough losses, tough times in the career.
"Mentally for sure I need to reset, I need to rest. I need to feel again fresh to play the upcoming tournaments."
Svitolina follows fourth seed Sofia Kenin and fifth seed Bianca Andreescu out of the tournament at this stage, following their defeats on Wednesday.
