that she had been struggling with knee pain for several weeks and announced she would take a short break to recover. Svitolina's clay-court season began with back-to-back opening round losses to Pauline Parmentier in Madrid and to Victoria Azarenka in Rome, where she was the two-time defending champion and had held a match point leading in the final set. At the French Open, Svitolina was defeated in the third round by the 2016 champion, Garbiñe Muguruza. After losing in her opening round at both Birmingham and Eastbourne, Svitolina proceeded to reach her first Grand Slam semifinal at Wimbledon with victories over Daria Gavrilova, Margarita Gasparyan, Maria Sakkari, Petra Martić and Karolína Muchová, becoming the first Ukrainian ever to do so. There, she faced eventual champion Simona Halep and was defeated in two sets. The North American hardcourt season began for Svitolina at San Jose, where as the top seed, she fell to Maria Sakkari in the quarterfinals. She would then fall to Sofia Kenin in both the quarterfinals of Toronto and the round of 16 at Cincinnati. Entering the US Open as the No. 5 seed, Svitolina defeated Whitney Osuigwe, Venus Williams, Dayana Yastremska and Madison Keys to reach her first US Open quarterfinal. There, she defeated Johanna Konta in straight sets for a spot in her second successive Grand Slam semifinal. She was then defeated in straight sets by Serena Williams. She subsequently returned to her career-high ranking position of No. 3. Svitolina reached three consecutive quarterfinals in the season-closing Asian swing, losing to Kristina Mladenovic in Zhengzhou, eventual runner-up Alison Riske in Wuhan, and Kiki Bertens in Beijing. Despite failing to reach a final during the season, Svitolina's overall consistency managed to secure her spot as the eighth seed at the WTA Finals in Shenzhen for the third successive year. She was drawn into the Purple Group alongside Karolína Plíšková, US Open champion Bianca Andreescu, who was later replaced by Sofia Kenin, and Wimbledon champion Simona Halep. Svitolina topped her group, winning all three matches without dropping a set. Her semifinal match against Belinda Bencic was cut short when Bencic retired with a leg injury down 4–1 in the final set, meaning that Svitolina would advance to the final for the second year in succession, as well as her first final since winning the title in 2018. She failed to defend her title, however, losing in straight sets