The divorce announcement of Elina Svitolina and Gael Monfils has taken over the tennis world, and every small detail is being followed. A new report on how Monfils learned about the end of his marriage has added fresh fuel to an already heated debate. 

French newspaper L’Équipe says that the Ukrainian told her husband of her intentions over the phone, and the details have left Svitolina facing sharp criticism online.

The French article was largely written from Monfils’ side of events and reported that the call came at the end of September. Svitolina had just left for the Asian swing, while Monfils was at home in Dubai with their daughter Skai. The news came as a heavy blow for the Frenchman, with the report saying it “hit him like a ton of bricks.” 

The former world No. 6 was already playing his last season on the tour and had planned to end his career at the Paris Masters, in his hometown, which starts on November 2. But the news was too much to take for Monfils, and the player who always entertained everyone with his on-court showmanship suddenly lost interest in playing the sport anymore. Especially when news of this gravity is conveyed through a phone call, it’s even harder to process. 

On October 5, he removed himself from the anti-doping lists, a step that placed him on the ITIA’s retired list and means he would need six months of out-of-competition testing before he could return. 

He was also removed from the entry list in Lyon this week for “personal reasons,” and was due to take part in an exhibition with fellow “Four Musketeers” Richard Gasquet, Gilles Simon and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. None of that will now happen. Because no explanation was given at the time, some commentators in France began to wonder aloud whether there might be an integrity issue, such as a breach of anti-doping or anti-gambling rules.

That context is why Svitolina went public. On Monday, she announced the end of the marriage, speaking about the effect of the situation in Ukraine and the “feeling of slowly losing myself.” A day later, she followed it with a second post, saying Monfils had faced accusations he did not deserve and that the couple had issued a joint statement. She also admitted the decision had been hers, writing that she did not want to keep living a life where she “wasn’t truly happy.”

The explanation did not stop the backlash, and Svitolina received a flood of hostile messages, many of them misogynistic, with some fans accusing her of ruining Monfils’ home farewell. Telegraph journalist Simon Briggs called the trolling unjust, noting that she only made the news public to settle incorrect rumours about Monfils.

Friends of the couple, speaking to the Telegraph, say none of it sounds like the behavior of a heartless partner, and describe her as dutiful and sympathetic. They also say the pair are still living together in Dubai, still co-parenting four-year-old Skai, and still hold each other in high regard.

People close to the couple wonder whether they were too quick to make the situation public, since a public announcement makes reconciliation harder. Neither Svitolina nor Monfils has commented on the L’Équipe report, and Monfils has not spoken publicly about either the separation or his retirement. 

Monfils’ summer preparation was limited to parenting duties and a new job with wealth-management firm AlphaSwiss, raising doubts about whether he was fully ready to compete anyway. However, he has not opted out of Stan Wawrinka’s farewell match in Geneva, where he is supposed to play a singles and a doubles match in the event. If everything goes right, Monfils will appear on the court for one last time before he starts living his corporate life. 

Svitolina, the current world No. 6, faced a setback in Wuhan before the announcement, exiting in the quarterfinal against Sonay Kartal in three sets. 48 hours before the announcement, she withdrew from the Ningbo Open, and now she has withdrawn from Tokyo as well. Anyways, she has qualified for the WTA Finals after seven years, where she will likely to face questions about her personal life that she may want to avoid despite putting everything out in public.