Gabriela Dabrowski, a three-time Grand Slam doubles champion, an Olympics mixed doubles medalist and the WTA Tour Finals women’s doubles champion has revealed that she played through a breast cancer diagnosis and treatment throughout the 2024 tennis 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 on Instagram.
Dabrowski found a lump in her left breast in spring 2023, but a doctor told her not to be concerned a few months later, she said. In spring 2024, a WTA doctor advised her to undergo a mammogram, before a biopsy confirmed the cancer diagnosis. She underwent two surgeries and a series of recovery treatments all while continuing to play tennis, and took a “slight delay in further treatment” to compete at Wimbledon and the Olympics. She reached the women’s doubles final at Wimbledon with partner Erin Routliffe, where they lost to Katerina Siniakova and Taylor Townsend, before she won the bronze medal in mixed doubles for Canada with Felix Auger-Aliassime.
Dabrowski ended the season by winning the WTA Tour Finals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia with Routliffe, taking home over £800,000 between them. During the tournament, Dabrowski hit pink tennis balls — designed to raise awareness for breast cancer — into the crowd, having not yet made her diagnosis public.
Gabriela Dabrowski at this year’s WTA Tour Finals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (Clive Brunskill / Getty Images)
“Over time, I began to recognize I was a part of something much bigger than myself,” she said of deciding to share her diagnosis.
“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, the current world No. 3 in doubles, won her first Grand Slam title in 2017. In winning the French Open mixed doubles title with Rohan Bopanna, she became the first Canadian woman to win a Grand Slam title. She then won the 2018 Australian Open mixed doubles with Mate Pavic, before she and Routliffe won their first Grand Slam title at the 2023 U.S. Open. She has 17 career doubles titles.
Dabrowski added that the experience had changed her approach to tennis. “If you saw me smiling more on court in the past 6 months, it was genuine. 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.”
(Top photo: Artur Widak / NurPhoto via Getty Images)
