Tennis’ first Grand Slam, going on from Jan. 12 – 26, 2025, has begun with the start of the Australian Open. The Ukrainian presence was quite formidable in Melbourne with three players seeded in the top 32 and a total of eight Ukrainians playing in the round of 128.
No. 18 ranked Marta Kostyuk earned Ukraine’s top seed (17th), followed by No. 29 Elina Svitolina (28th seed) and No. 33 Dayana Yastremska (32nd seed). No. 48 Anhelina Kalinina, No. 59 Katie Volynets, No. 95 Nadia Podoroska, No. 100 Yuliia Starodubtseva and No. 139 Daria Snigur made it eight Ukrainian women competing in singles at the Open. (Unfortunately, Starodubtseva, Volynets, Podoroska, Snigur and Kalinina suffered quick exits when all five of them were eliminated in the opening round of singles play.)
Of note, Volynets is a full-blooded Ukrainian whose parents emigrated from Ukraine, but she plays under the American flag, having been born in California. Podoroska represents Argentina on the WTA Tour in honor of her Argentinian father, Marcelo. Nadia’s mother, Irene, is Ukrainian.
Additionally, perennial doubles challengers Lyudmyla and Nadiia Kichenok are entered in the Australian Open’s doubles competition. Lyudmyla and partner H.C. Chan are seeded fifth, while twin sister Nadiia and partner Leylah Fernandez are the 16th seed in doubles. Kostyuk and Kalinina are also in the doubles draw with their respective partners, Elena-Gabriela Ruse and Lucia Bronzetti.
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Below is a refresher on the Ukrainian women competing at the 2025 Australian Open where several have previously exceeded expectations.
Marta Kostyuk
Twenty-two-year-old Marta Kostyuk, a Kyiv native, comes from a tennis family. Her mother was a professional player and her coach, while her father was a director of a tennis tournament in Kyiv. She has one WTA Tour title, winning the ATX Open in Texas in 2023 and had a career-high top ranking of No. 16 in the world back in June 2024. Marta hopes to improve on her career-best showing at a major last year when she reached the quarterfinals in Melbourne. In a tune-up to the Australian Open she lost in the round of 32 at the Adelaide International.
She has two career titles in doubles and along with partner Elena-Gabriela Ruse has made the doubles semifinals at the 2023 Australian Open and 2024 French Open. Partnering with Dayana Yastremska, Kostyuk represented Ukraine at the Paris Olympics, losing in the second round.
In January 2023, Kostyuk was named Wilson Sporting Goods’ first-ever head-to-toe-plus-equipment brand ambassador.
At the 2025 Australian Open Kostyuk again voiced her opinion that Russian and Belarusian players should be banned from playing on the professional tours while Ukraine remains at war. She further stated that she would not be shaking hands with players from the two aggressor countries for the rest of her career.
Elina Svitolina
Odesa-born, Kharkiv-trained Elina Svitolina is arguably Ukraine’s greatest-ever tennis player. Her excellence in the sport was first witnessed in 2010 when as a junior she won the French Open girls event. Svitolina reached a career-high No. 3 ranking in September 2017 and has won 17 career singles titles. Her top Grand Slam singles results are semifinals at Wimbledon twice (2019, 2023) and at the US Open (2019). She won five singles titles in 2017 which propelled her into the top 10. Elina won the 2018 WTA Finals and three Premier 5-level tournaments: The Dubai Tennis Championships, the Italian Open and the Canadian Open.
She has also won two titles in doubles, both at the Istanbul Cup in 2014 and 2015. In 2021 Svitolina won the Olympic bronze medal in women’s singles at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the first Olympian to win a medal in tennis for Ukraine.
In 2022, Elina took a break from professional tennis to give birth to her first child with husband and men’s tennis player Gael Monfils, daughter Skai. She made a strong comeback upon her return to competition in 2023, winning a WTA Tour title and going far in the French Open and Wimbledon, including beating world No. 1 Iga Swiatek.
In 2024 she reached the fourth round of the Australian Open only to retire with a back injury. Seeded 21st at Wimbledon she surprised by playing into the quarterfinals where she lost to Elena Rybakina in straight sets. Her season ended early at the end of September due to surgery after she withdrew from the China Open.
The 30-year-old Svitolina has used her social media platform to advocate for her homeland since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Her foundation has raised money to rebuild schools and housing in the Kyiv area and has funded youth tennis tournaments across Ukraine. She has donated prize money to humanitarian efforts in her native country and is an active ambassador for President Volodymyr Zelensky’s United 24 government charity initiative.
Dayana Yastremska
Dayana Yastremska has enjoyed a rapid breakthrough on the WTA Tour, debuting in the top 100 and winning a pair of titles at 18 years old, including her first at the Hong Kong Open in 2018. Her success in 2019 saw her rise from No. 58 at the start of the year up to No. 22 by the end of the season.
Dayana has won three WTA Tour titles and her best Grand Slam performance was reaching the semifinals at the 2024 Australian Open
Born on May 15, 2000 in Odesa, Ukraine, Yastremska tried gymnastics and swimming before being introduced to tennis by her grandfather. She decided to focus on tennis, entering her first tournament at age seven. She credits her parents for her success in the sport for pushing her at the right moment.
Yastremska was provisionally suspended from competition at the start of 2021 after testing positive for mesterolone. She was declared not responsible for the positive result and deemed eligible to return to competition by the International Tennis Federation in June 2021.
As the top seed at the 2025 Hobart International, Yastremska defeated fellow Ukrainian Katie Volynets and Ann Li to reach the quarterfinals, where she lost to eventual champion McCartney Kessler.
Anhelina Kalinina reached her career-high WTA singles ranking of No. 25 in May 2023. She has won one singles title on the WTA Challenger Tour plus 15 singles titles and three doubles titles on the ITF Circuit. In June 2022 Kalinina, at No. 34, was the number-one Ukrainian tennis player ahead of Elina Svitolina.
Kalinina qualified for the 2024 Paris Olympics, but was forced to withdraw from the competition after catching a cold. She lost to Elina Svitolina in the second round of the 2024 US Open.
Anhelina started the 2025 season at the Brisbane International, where she reached the semifinals before losing to Russian qualifier Polina Kudermetova. Her best showing at a Grand Slam event was the third round at the 2023 Australian Open.
Katie Volynets
In August 2019 Katie Volynets won the USTA Girls 18’s National Championships which earned her a wild card entry into the singles main draw of the US Open. She lost to eventual tournament winner Bianca Andreescu. Since then she has gone on to win one WTA Challenger, the Makarska International Croatia and two ITF titles.
In 2023 she reached the third round of the Australian Open, defeating two Russians along the way (Evgeniya Rodina and world No. 9 Veronika Kudermetova). She became the first American qualifier to reach the women’s singles third round at the Australian Open since Jennifer Brady in 2017.
The 23-year-old has thus far earned $1,800,000 in prize money and reached a career-high ranking of No. 56 in July 2024.
Nadia Podoroska
Nadia Podoroska reached her best singles ranking of world No. 36 in July 2021. She has won over $2.5 million in prize money and captured three WTA Challenger titles. She played into the round of 16 in Olympics tennis at the 2020 Tokyo Games and that same year became the first qualifier to reach the semifinals of the French Open when she defeated Elina Svitolina in the quarterfinals at Roland Garros. She was named the WTA Newcomer of the Year for her performance throughout the season. Podoroska lives and trains in Alicante, Spain.
Yuliia Starodubtseva
In 2024, Yuliia Starodubtseva became the first woman in the Open era to qualify for all four majors in a single season. Her best result was at Wimbledon where she made it into the second round. The 24-year-old Kakhovka, Ukraine native achieved a career-best ranking of No, 79 in October 2024. She has won four ITF titles and earned $700,000 on the WTA Tour.
Daria Snigur
In July 2019, Daria Snigur became the second Ukrainian junior champion at Wimbledon after Kateryna Bondarenko Volodko. She reached a career-high ranking of No. 2 on the ITF Junior Circuit in October 2019 and peaked at No. 105 in WTA rankings in November 2022. That same year Snigur made her WTA Tour debut at the Nottingham Open and her Grand Slam main-draw debut as a qualifier in the US Open where she defeated world No. 1 and seventh seed Simona Halep. The 22-year-old Kyiv native has earned $810,000 in prize money.
Nadiia Kichenok
Nadiia Kichenok has won nine doubles titles on the WTA Tour, including four with her twin sister Lyudmyla. She has also won four singles titles and 24 doubles titles in the ITF Women’s Circuit. She reached a career-high of No. 29 in the WTA doubles rankings in January 2022.
As of November 2024, Nadiia had a won-loss record of 7-7 playing for Ukraine’s Fed Cup team. Partnered with her sister she reached the quarterfinals at the 2024 Paris Olympics. In Ukraine’s 2024 Billie Jean King Cup playoffs tie against Austria, Nadiia partnered with Katarina Zavatska to win the deciding doubles match.
Thirty-two-year-old Lyudmyla Kichenok has been ranked as high as world No. 31 in doubles and is a two-time Grand Slam champion, winning the 2024 US Open with Jelena Ostapenko and the 2023 Wimbledon Championships in mixed doubles with Mate Pavic, becoming the first Ukrainian champion in Wimbledon history. Lyudmyla has won ten additional doubles titles on the WTA Tour.
The Dnipro, Ukraine native owned a career doubles record of 455-297 as of Dec. 30, 2024 with career earnings of $2,850,000.
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