Elina Svitolina books first final since return from pregnancy in Strasbourg

Elina Svitolina is officially back as the Ukranian advanced to her first final since becoming a mother, she will face Russian Blinkova in the final in Strasbourg tomorrow.

Svitolina has been working hard in the previous few weeks in order to return to competitive form. She took part in a couple of smaller events slowly working her way to a good form and today was the culmination of that. Svitolina has been playing really well since the start of the event in Strasbourg and that continued against Burel.

The French player took the first set 6-4 after a long battle against Svitolina where the Ukrainian player battled back all the way to 5-4 giving herself a chance to make it 5-5 with a strong service game. She failed to do that and Burel escaped with the first set but the match was far from over.

Burel took an early lead in the second set as well 4-1 but Svitolina didn't give up and kept battling ultimately getting all the way to 5-4 with a chance to serve out the set. She failed but broke again for the 6-5 lead and then finally got it done to send the match into a 3rd set. The final set opened well for Svitolina who took an early 3-0 lead with Burel getting the score back to 3-3.

Eventually Svitolina outplayed the French player to win 6-3 and send herself to the first final since giving birth.