CNN
—
On the tennis court, the results show that Gabriela Dabrowski had a successful 2024. The Canadian won the end-of-season WTA Finals in doubles with Erin Routliffe and a bronze medal in mixed doubles with Felix Auger-Aliassime at the Paris Olympics.
But Dabrowski, a three-time doubles grand slam champion, has since revealed that she privately was fighting a battle off the court for most of the season.
“How can something so small cause such a big problem? This is the question I asked myself when I was diagnosed with breast cancer back in mid-April,” Dabrowski, 32, wrote in a post on Instagram.
“I know this will come as a shock to many, but I am okay and I will be okay. Early detection saves lives. I can wholeheartedly agree with this.”
Dabrowski said she first felt a lump during a self-exam in the spring of 2023, but that a doctor a few months later said it was nothing and not to worry. However, in spring of 2024, Dabrowski said she thought the lump was a little bigger, and a WTA doctor told her she wasn’t sure what it was and to get it scanned.
Following a mammogram, an ultrasound and then a biopsy, Dabrowski received the cancer diagnosis. “These are words you never expect to hear, and in an instant your life or the life of a loved one turns upside down,” Dabrowski wrote.
Dabrowski details that she underwent two surgeries but that there was “a slight delay in further treatment” so she could compete at Wimbledon and the Olympics.
She reached the Wimbledon women’s doubles final with Routliffe, losing to Katerina Siniakova and Taylor Townsend in the championship. A few weeks later, she won Olympic bronze in Paris with Auger-Aliassime.
Dabrowski went on to end her season by winning the WTA Finals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in November, teaming up with Routliffe to defeat Siniakova and Townsend in the championship. The pair went unbeaten in the tournament and won $1,125,000 in prize money as a team. In her Instagram post, Dabrowski said that “ending the season on the highest note possible… it all seems surreal.”
Dabrowski wasn’t ready to go public with her news then – even while she hit autographed pink tennis balls for breast cancer awareness into the crowd at the event.
“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,” Dabrowski said. “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. Please know I am fully aware of how lucky I am as well, because many do not get the luxury of being able to tell their story at all.”
Dabrowski, currently ranked No. 3 in the world in women’s doubles, said it’s a privilege to be able to call herself a survivor and that the cancer diagnosis gave her an opportunity to “see challenges through a different lens: a lens of gratitude.”
“If you saw me smiling more on court in the past 6 months, it was genuine,” Dabrowski said. “That wasn’t always the case. While I have been actively working on improving my attitude for many years through therapy and other guidance, my cancer diagnosis was the catalyst for more sustained change.
“When the threat of losing everything I’d worked for my entire life became a real possibility, only then did I begin to authentically appreciate what I had. Loving parents and friends, amazing coaches, a doubles partner who stuck by me, a real team, access to health care experts, and to play a game for a living.”
Dabrowski concluded her post with: “To cancer I say f**k you, but also, thank you.”
