Ajla Tomljanovic issues alarming health update from her hospital bed
Australian tennis star Ajla Tomljanovic has endured some challenging times on and off the court over the last year and now she has delivered a worrying update to her fans.
Tomljanovic reached the quarter-finals at Wimbledon in 2021 and 2022, while also making it through to the last eight of the US Open as she achieved a career-high ranking of No 32 last year.
Yet injuries have been a constant theme of her sorry in recent months and now she has posted an image from her hospital bed with the following message.
“Hello everyone, unfortunately, I won’t be competing for a couple of weeks,” Tomljanovic wrote on Instagram.
“Was very much looking forward to the next hard court events. I had to get some uterine fibroids removed and will be watching from home while healing. Will be back soon.”
Fibroids are muscular tumours that grow in the wall of the uterus (womb).
Another medical term for fibroids is leiomyoma (leye-oh-meye-OH-muh) or just “myoma” and they are almost always benign (not cancerous). Fibroids can grow as a single tumour, or there can be many of them in the uterus.
While this is not considered to be a serious medical problem for Tomljanovic, it is another setback after she was knocked out of a WTA Tour event in Thailand last week.
She was planning to use her protected ranking to enter the upcoming WTA 1000 event in Indian Wells, but she now looks set to miss that event and the Miami Open that will follow.
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It is another setback for an elegant player who was feeling confident about her hopes for 2024 after being defeated by Jelena Ostapenko at last month’s Australian Open.
“If I can kind of summarize this Aussie summer, I’m pretty happy with where I’m at and how I’ve responded under pressure really because as much as I’m kind of coming back, I did expect myself to play well,” she said.
“So I definitely think I just need more court time and it will come at some point. Yeah, without the constant work, it’s not going to come.
“I feel like I’m on the right track, but I have to keep working. I like that there’s a lot of room to improve.
“My schedule depends sometimes on wild cards because I’m really selective with my special ranking tournaments that I’m using.”
Even though Tomljanovic’s ranking has tumbled due to her lack of activity in 2023, she can use a protected ranking to enter big tournaments.
This allows her to enter top-level events using the ranking she held when she was injured, with a set number of tournaments accepting entries from players with a protected ranking.
2021 US Open champion Emma Raducanu is also using this rankings rule this year as she accepts entry to elite WTA Tour events and has a chance to make a speedy rise up the rankings.
Players can only use their protected ranking as they make their way back into the game after a long spell on the sidelines and Tomljanovic will have spare tournament entries to use when she is fit to return from her latest setback.