World No 6 Elina Svitolina has confirmed that her husband Gael Monfils made the decision to retire from professional tennis after she asked for a divorce.

After Svitolina posted a statement about the separation on Monday, she met with a wave of hostility on social media, with many tennis fans complaining that she should at least have waited until after Monfils’s intended farewell at the upcoming Paris Masters.

Instead, Monfils – who is 40 – placed his name on the list of inactive players on October 5. This meant that he dropped out of the final events he was expected to participate in, including not only Paris on November 2 but also the ATP 250 tournament in Lille this week, where he was supposed to be playing an exhibition match with the other members of the so-called “Four Musketeers”: Richard Gasquet, Gilles Simon and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

On Tuesday, Svitolina posted for a second time on Instagram, stating a need to “clarify” her previous post in which she announced that the pair would be getting divorced.

She said: “I just want to clarify my previous post a little, because I realized that not everyone, especially my international audience, fully understood what I was trying to say.

“In that post, I shared only one of the reasons that influenced my decision and made me reflect on my life and my future. But the truth is, there’s so much more to it, and it was never just about one thing.

“When you’ve been living through the reality of war for more than 4.5 years, experiencing so many different situations, emotions, and difficult moments, you naturally start seeing life differently. Your perspective changes, your values and priorities shift, and you begin to understand what you truly want out of life.

“At some point, I simply realized that I didn’t want to keep living a life where I wasn’t truly happy. And believe me, coming to this decision was anything but easy.”

Svitolina also said in the statement: “That was and is my view on announcing the end of our marriage but as some of you saw, Gael’s career ended abruptly after he made the decision to stop based on our situation. Unfortunately, he had many accusations thrown at him and he didn’t deserve that, so we jointly released a statement.”

There had been articles in France circulating since the US Open questioning the motives behind Monfils’ premature career ending, including his integrity.

Svitolina’s initial post led to a backlash against her, as fans blamed her for denying a player known for flair and delighting the crowd a farewell in his home city of Paris.

Monfils’ final outing on the professional tour instead was a second-round defeat to Learner Tien at the US Open on Louis Armstrong Stadium. However, it remains to be seen whether he will play a part in Stan Wawrinka’s farewell in Geneva in December, where Monfils had been set to feature alongside Roger Federer and Andy Murray.