BILLIE JEAN KING CUP

September 22, 2026

Illya Marchenko

Elina Svitolina

Katarina Zabatska

Anhelina Kalinina

Lyudmyla Kichenok

Team Ukraine

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Thank you for joining the press conference with Team Ukraine.

Elina, normally when you're playing individually, you're playing for yourself. In this competition you're playing for your country. How does it feel having all your teammates fighting to get the best result?

ELINA SVITOLINA: Yeah, as you mention we are here as a team. It's a great event to be competing at and represent our country. Another great opportunity for Ukraine to really shine and maybe make another step further this year. So yeah, really excited. Cannot wait for the matches to begin.

THE MODERATOR: We'll open the floor for questions, please.

Q. Captain, could you talk us through Team Belgium, what you see in them.

CAPTAIN MARCHENKO: Well, obviously on paper we are favorites. It's Billie Jean King Cup, and you can expect anything. Anything can happen. It's only three matches. If something goes wrong in one of the singles, it's deciding.

They have, like, young team. Their No. 1 is pretty young. She broken through the top 100 last year. Yeah, I mean, we don't expect any easy result. Yeah, we pretty confident, and I'm pretty confident in my team.

Q. Elina, you came so close last year to making the BJK Cup Final. I wonder if that gives you extra motivation to go all the way this year.

ELINA SVITOLINA: Yeah, I have sweeter-bit (sic) memories from here, to be fair. The match against Italy was pretty close. But still I feel very proud of the team, all the effort we've done in the previous years.

Right now we have another opportunity to maybe make it a bit further this year. But we are starting from the top again.

Yeah, it's going to be a great opportunity for us to play in the first round against Belgium. We'll try to really take it from the scratch and do our best against them.

Yeah, just take one match at a time.

Q. You kind of answered the question about looking ahead. Could be a rematch against Italy or even playing against the host nation. Do you allow yourself at this point to look all the way through or do you take it match by match?

ELINA SVITOLINA: Well, as I always do in my career, I take one match at a time. You have to pay all the respect for the opponents, as well. It's a team competition. Here not only one match matters, but all of them, all three matches.

Everyone is extremely motivated to win against you, so you have to be really focused from the first until the last point. We've seen in the history of Billie Jean King Cup different turns and different deciding doubles, as well.

Yeah, I think for us it will be important just to focus on the first match. If we win the tie, then we'll go focus on the next semifinal match.

Q. Captain, your opponent is Belgium, which is a black-horse (sic). They defeated U.S. in the qualifiers. You have such a young team. What will your tactics be? You have very good players for the singles and the doubles. How are you going to balance the singles to maximize your possibility of winning?

CAPTAIN MARCHENKO: Yeah, so for the first question about Belgium, they beat USA in the qualifiers, but I think they lost their key player from that tie. Mertens is not here. Yeah, it's a very different team without her.

As you mentioned, they are pretty young. We're going to rely on our experience and our quality players.

What was the second question?

Q. How are you going to balance the doubles and singles to have the biggest or best chance of winning?

CAPTAIN MARCHENKO: Okay, yeah, we have an idea who going to play singles and doubles obviously. We still have one more day. I'm not sure. We're going to decide tomorrow. We're going to have a meeting with the coaches and decide how we going to balance it.

I cannot answer this question right now.