Wimbledon finalist Gabriela Dabrowski has revealed she played through the 2024 season while receiving treatment for breast cancer.
The 32-year-old Canadian had kept her diagnosis in April a secret but detailed the battle she has been through in a lengthy Instagram post.
Dabrowski said: “I know this will come as a shock to many, but I am OK and I will be OK. Early detection saves lives.”
Having first found a lump in the spring of 2023, which she said she was told was nothing to worry about, she had a scan a year later and was then diagnosed with cancer.
Dabrowski did not play a match in April and May following surgery but returned in June, winning her first tournament back with partner Erin Routliffe in Nottingham.
She delayed treatment in order to compete at Wimbledon, where she and Routliffe finished as runners-up, and the Olympics, while the pair ended the season by winning the WTA Finals, leaving Dabrowski ranked third in the world.
In her Olympic bronze-medal match alongside compatriot Felix Auger-Aliassime, Dabrowski beat Wesley Koolhof and Demi Schuurs of the Netherlands 6-3, 7-6 (2) to win Canada’s first ever Olympic medal in mixed doubles.
“It all seems surreal,” she wrote. “Why am I sharing my story now? For a long time I wasn’t ready to expose myself to the possible attention and questions I’d have gotten before. I wanted to figure everything out and handle things privately with only those closest to me in the loop.
“There were so many unknowns and so much learning and research to be done. Currently I’m in a place where I have a better grasp of my treatment, side effects and how to manage them.
“My intentions in sharing some of my experience are to emphasise the quality of life one can maintain when cancer is detected early, when you have access to doctors and other health care practitioners who are highly skilled and dedicated to their craft, when you take care of your mental, physical and spiritual wellbeing, and when you surround yourself with people who truly have your back (and your front).”
