Paris Olympic bronze medallist and three-time Grand Slam champion Gabriela Dabrowski has revealed she battled breast cancer throughout 2024 and played the entire season while receiving treatment. "I know this will come as a shock to many, but I am okay and will be okay," she wrote in an Instagram post. "Early detection saves lives.
I can wholeheartedly agree with this." The 32-year-old Canadian, who reached her career-high doubles ranking number three, said she briefly took a break from tennis after undergoing two surgeries but returned to the court in June, where she won the Rothesay Open Nottingham with her partner Erin Routliffe. Dabrowski said she had paused her treatment for some time to compete at Wimbledon and at the Paris Olympic Game where she and Routliffe finished as runners-up at Wimbledon, and Dabrowski clinched a bronze medal in mixed doubles at the Paris Games.
"It all seems surreal," she posted. Dabrowski's health battle began in 2023 According to Dabrowski, her health troubles began in the spring of 2023 when she felt a lump in her left breast during a self-exam, but a doctor told her it was nothing to worry about. "So, I didn't.
Time went on, and in the spring of 2024, I thought the lump was a little bigger," she wrote. "During our comprehensive physicals, a WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) doctor told me she wasn't sure what it was and to go and get it scanned." Dabrowski then got a mammogram, ultrasound, and biopsy before she was diagnosed with cancer.
".
