After losing an exhibition match to fellow Ukrainian Elina Svitolina<\/a> last December in India, Marta Kostyuk<\/a> had had enough. She told her coach, Sandra Zaniewska<\/a>, that if she didn\u2019t kick on the following year, Kostyuk would consider quitting tennis.<\/p>\n \u201cI kind of hit rock bottom,\u201d Kostyuk, who was ranked No. 26 at the time, said in a video interview from her Monaco home earlier this month. \u201cI told her that it feels like I\u2019m literally shedding my skin. Like it\u2019s coming off, and I have to rip it, and it\u2019s very painful because you hit these very deep, emotional things that are difficult to process.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember sitting, and I was like, \u2018I don\u2019t know how long I can deal with this because I\u2019ve been dealing with this shedding for the past four years, and it\u2019s like layer by layer, more things come up.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cI felt like I\u2019m coming to the point where I\u2019ve tried everything that there is.\u201d<\/p>\n Five months later, Kostyuk, 23, is in a much different place. After winning the Rouen Open and then the Madrid Open, a WTA 1000 event, which is just below the Grand Slams she trebled her career total of WTA titles, going some way to dispel the notion that she is not mentally tough enough to have the kind of career her talent merits.<\/p>\n After skipping the Italian Open because she didn\u2019t want to risk aggravating a leg issue, she arrived at the French Open on an 11-match winning streak as the world No. 15. Immediately, a reminder of her everyday difficulties as a player arrived.<\/p>\n Shortly before a 6-2, 6-3 win over Oksana Selekhmeteva, who recently switched nationality from Russia to Spain, a missile struck near Kostyuk\u2019s parents\u2019 home in Kyiv<\/a>, during a bombardment from Russia.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m incredibly proud of myself today,\u201d Kostyuk, 23, said during her on-court interview.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it was one of the most difficult matches of my career. This morning, 100 meters away from my parents\u2019 house, a missile destroyed the building.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a very difficult morning. I didn\u2019t know how this match was going to turn around for me. I didn\u2019t know how I would handle it. I\u2019ve been crying part of the morning.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s important to keep going. My biggest example is Ukrainian people. I woke up in the morning today and I looked at all these people who woke up and kept living their lives, kept helping people who are in need. I knew a lot of Ukrainian flags would be here today and a lot of Ukrainian people would come out and support. My friends from Ukraine came as well. Very happy to have them here. Not much I can say.\u201d<\/p>\n Three matches later, Kostyuk is celebrating the biggest win of her life. She ousted four-time champion Iga \u015awi\u0105tek<\/a> to reach the French Open quarterfinals, with a 7-5, 6-1 win on Court Philippe-Chatrier.<\/p>\n Kostyuk\u2019s path understanding this reality, and changing her tennis one, has has not been straightforward. Following that \u201crock bottom\u201d at the end of 2025, Kostyuk\u2019s difficulties continued into 2026.<\/p>\n She lost to Elsa Jacquemot in a seesawing Australian Open first-round match, having gotten to a final-set tiebreak despite tearing a ligament in her left ankle during a match that lasted 3 hours, 31 minutes.<\/p>\n After another early loss at the Miami Open in March, Kostyuk had another frank conversation with Zaniewska. Data commissioned from an analytics company suggested that Kostyuk\u2019s performance in 2026 warranted a place in the top 10. Her ranking did not reflect that.<\/p>\n \u201cI was like, \u2018Yes, Sandra, it\u2019s great \u2014 but where are the results? I\u2019m not even close, I\u2019m No. 28. The math is not mathing,\u2019\u2009\u201d Kostyuk said.<\/p>\n After her Madrid Open title, Zaniewska delivered her retort. \u201cSee, I told you,\u201d she said with a smile.<\/p>\n \u201cJust wait.\u201d<\/p>\n For Kostyuk, who caught the tennis world\u2019s attention by reaching the third round of the 2018 Australian Open at 15, the wait has been much longer than a few months. That run followed a successful junior career \u2014 she was the defending girls\u2019 singles champion at the same time as her main-draw run \u2014 guided by her mother, who had high expectations in every sense.<\/p>\n She entered Kostyuk\u2019s height as 5 foot 7 on the tour website. Kostyuk, she said while laughing, is 5-6.<\/p>\n After \u201ca lot of chaos growing up,\u201d she struggled to juggle the challenges of teenage life with the demands of being an elite tennis player.<\/p>\n \u201cI was very energetic,\u201d she said. \u201cI did 100 things in a day. I was very emotional, very sensitive. I mean, still am, it\u2019s just different. When you\u2019re a child, you process things differently.<\/p>\n \u201cI was crazy; I don\u2019t know how else to phrase it.\u201d<\/p>\n The struggle to fulfill her potential until this year was \u201cthe majority of the time mental,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cI consider myself a pretty athletic player, but it\u2019s still very connected to the mental part. If there are some things that you doubt, or you\u2019re not sure of, it\u2019s not easy to beat that even with physicality.\u201d<\/p>\n \n Marta Kostyuk\u2019s first Grand Slam breakthrough came at the 2018 Australian Open. (Peter Parks \/ Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The first turning point in Kostyuk\u2019s career arrived in February 2022, when Russia first invaded Ukraine. The start of the war was \u201ca horrendous time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery day felt like an eternity because of all the news and everything that we had to do publicly and speak (about). The part with the tour, it was very complicated and very frustrating, so that would take up a lot of energy.\u201d<\/p>\n After the Sunshine Double of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif., and the Miami Open, Kostyuk returned home feeling drained. She said she had \u201csuicidal thoughts\u201d that were \u201creally difficult for me to control.\u201d In the ensuing four years, the war has remained a constant preoccupation, a low hum punctuated by sharp shocks.<\/p>\n Kostyuk\u2019s mother and sister came to live near her in Monaco when it first started, but they moved back to Ukraine after struggling to settle.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of people don\u2019t understand that when you move to a different country, you need to find your place there, and it\u2019s a very, very difficult journey to pretty much insert yourself into a new environment, new language, new people, new culture,\u201d Kostyuk said.<\/p>\n With most of her family and friends in Ukraine, including her 74-year-old father, Kostyuk returns to visit a couple of times a year, on a drive from Poland that can take between 10 and 17 hours. Kostyuk last visited in April, and while there have been no major attacks when she has been at home, she has practiced amid air raids, with drones and explosions audible in the distance.<\/p>\n \u201cYou live day by day,\u201d <\/strong>she said. \u201cYou don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen. It\u2019s not stable, ever. Some days are fine, some days they\u2019re worse. Sometimes something triggers me really bad.\u201d<\/p>\n Ukrainians and Russians compete against each other in tennis<\/a> more often than in any other individual sport, and the post-match handshake can expose these tensions. Ukrainian players stopped shaking hands with their Russian counterparts after the invasion, a policy that Kostyuk and her compatriots extend to players who\u2019ve changed nationalities but not denounced the war.<\/p>\n Kostyuk said that after Vladimir Putin\u2019s invasion, she initially found it \u201cvery emotional\u201d facing Russian players.<\/p>\n \u201cEspecially when you knew \u2026 we know a lot of inside information within the tour, what someone thinks, what someone said, what\u2019s someone\u2019s opinion. So against some players, it was even more difficult to play,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n This was the backdrop for the biggest win of Kostyuk\u2019s career, the Madrid Open final earlier this month against Russia\u2019s Mirra Andreeva<\/a>, the world No. 8.<\/p>\n \n Marta Kostyuk won the biggest title of her career on clay at April\u2019s Madrid Open. (Franck Fife \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Everyone knew Kostyuk and Andreeva would not shake hands at the end of their meeting in Madrid, but a final creates other complications. The trophy ceremony and post-match speeches can also be fraught, and Kostyuk said her husband hoped Andreeva would lose to Hayley Baptiste in the semifinals because he wanted to \u201chave a really nice ceremony, really good vibes.\u201d<\/p>\n After her title win, Kostyuk did not mention Andreeva in her victory speech.<\/p>\n \u201cWhether I win or I lose, I never had a problem acknowledging my opponent,\u201d Kostyuk said of the incident. \u201cBut in that moment when I\u2019m on the stage, and I give a speech, I want to be compassionate with people in Ukraine, who are almost daily being bombarded by Russia and Belarus.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are dying, people are suffering. It\u2019s a terrible, terrible situation, and in that moment, my heart is with these people, so I just cannot.\u201d<\/p>\n Tennis authorities have yet to align with the International Olympic Committee\u2019s recommendation that Belarusian athletes play under their flags.<\/p>\n There are seven Ukrainian players in the top 100, and following Svitolina\u2019s Italian Open win earlier this month, they have won the last two big WTA events. Kostyuk said that when Oleksandra Oliynykova<\/a> claimed the WTA had threatened her with disqualification and fines over her comments about Russian and Belarusian players, she got in touch to check on Oliynykova\u2019s well-being.<\/p>\n A potentially make-or-break year for Kostyuk has so far been much the former, and Kostyuk credits that to what she did during the most difficult parts of 2022.<\/p>\n \u201cI came to my mom, and I said, \u2018Listen, I really need to find a therapist because I\u2019m just not handling it anymore,\u2019\u2009\u201d Kostyuk said.<\/p>\n \u201cI made the decision in just a matter of days. I was like, \u2018OK, this is not good, I need to deal with this, and that\u2019s it.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s possible to change without being conscious about it. It definitely took me a lot of years to generally change my perspective on life and on tennis and on myself. I think a lot of performers struggle with this, that you cannot separate your identity from your results. So whenever you play badly, you think you\u2019re a terrible person, you are not worth anything. I was one of these people for sure. And that was really just difficult to live like this because \u2026 I mean, we lose every single week.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Marta](\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/athletic\/uploads\/wp\/2026\/05\/22074211\/Tennis-Marta-Kostyuk-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Marta](\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/athletic\/uploads\/wp\/2026\/05\/21003628\/GettyImages-2216341195-scaled.jpg\")
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