Svitolina says she's on the right path for Slam glory

Elina Svitolina believes progress she me in 2019 will help her achieve her ultimate goal of becoming first Ukranian woman to win a Grand Slam singles title. Speaking ahe of season-opening Brisbane International, 25-year-old insisted she was rey to take next step after promising so much over past five years. Svitolina has long been touted as a future major champion, but despite reaching a career-high world ranking of three and winning 13 titles on WTA tour, until 2019 she h never reached semi-final st at a Grand Slam.

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Svitolina says she's on right path

However, last year she me semi-finals at both Wimbledon and US Open and she said this showed she was on right path.

"Making semi-finals definitely brought me belief that I could take one step furr," she said.

"I h chance to play on biggest sts and that gave me lots of confidence at that particular point." 

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Svitolina h a mixed year in 2019. Although she also me decider at vember's WTA Finals, where she fell to world number one Ashleigh Barty, she also failed to win a title for first time since 2012. "I think maybe 2019 was tough because re were more s moments, I would say. But also, it's tough to really understand what's going on because year is very long," she said. "You have to lose almost every single week, so you have to take lots of positives somehow, and that's, I think, what I learned from past year, that you have to stay really positive in even b moments and try to move forward." 

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Svitolina has brought former men's number eight Marcos Baghdatis onto her coaching team to assist Andrew Bettles in a bid to give her game an extra dimension. "As an ex-player he sees game from his point and it's something different that I was looking for to d into my game," Svitolina said. "For sure we improved massively with Andy for past years I've been working with him and he kws me very, very well. "(But) for me it's important to d small things that can improve my game and that's what I'm looking for."  Svitolina, who won Brisbane title in 2018, will open her 2020 campaign against American Danielle Collins. 

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