the third seed. After holding off Andrea Petkovic and Jeļena Ostapenko, she was confronted by Elise Mertens and lost after her second consecutive third set tiebreak at the tournament. Next, Svitolina began the Australian Open as the fifth seed and made it to the fourth round before she was shocked by unseeded Jessica Pegula in another three-set match, one that she recapped as "where nothing was going my way." The loss gave Pegula her first victory over a top 10 player, but Svitolina her sixth defeat to a player ranked outside the top 30 at a Grand Slam event since she had become ranked within the top 10 since May 2017. In March, Svitolina began the year's Middle Eastern hardcourt swing that ended with consecutive disappointments. She first entered the Qatar Open as the top seed but was defeated by an injured Victoria Azarenka in her second match of the tournament. The following week, she entered the Dubai Championships as the first seed once more, but she was quickly forced out just after her first match following a loss to Svetlana Kuznetsova, in three sets. Later that month, she turned her fortunes around at the Miami Open, after she reached the semifinals for the first time in her seventh appearance at the tournament. She was defeated by eventual champion, Ash Barty, in straight sets. Svitolina kicked off the year's Europe clay swing at the Stuttgart Open with a strong performance after making it to the semifinals following a grueling three-set win over defending champion, Petra Kvitová, in the quarterfinals. The win set her up for her second semifinal match of the year against Ashleigh Barty, where she eventually came up short again in another three-set match. The defeat marked her third consecutive loss to Barty in their head-to-head record. Svitolina experienced much less success at the Madrid Open after being upset in the first round by Jil Teichmann, but she shrugged the loss off quickly as she made it into the quarterfinals of the Italian Open the following week. There, she was defeated by eventual champion Iga Świątek, in straight sets. The swing ended at the French Open, where fifth-seeded Svitolina lost in the third round to eventual champion, Barbora Krejčíková, in straight sets. Despite the losses, Svitolina credited her investment in online psychology courses with helping her cope with the chaotic nature of being on tour during the clay-court