Last season was nothing short of a nightmarish dream for 33-year-old WTA star and 2025 US Open doubles champion Gabriela Dabrowski. Remember how she shocked the tennis world with her revelation on the last day of the previous year? “These are words you never expect to hear, and in an instant, your life or the life of a loved one turns upside down,” wrote the Canadian player on social media while unleashing the truth behind her courageous journey of fighting her toughest opponent to-date. The only problem? The opponent was invisible. Still, the World No.4 doubles icon eventually managed to emerge victorious.

For the uninitiated, Dabrowski was diagnosed with breast cancer last year. And no one knew it until she made the information public in an Instagram post dated December 31. Back in April 2024, she felt a lump in her left breast. Initially, doctors told her there was no need to worry. However, the lump grew bigger during the spring. Later, during her WTA comprehensive physicals, a different doctor recommended a scan, which confirmed the diagnosis.

Thankfully, after two surgeries at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, a recovery and rehab phase, Dabrowski was able to embrace life again like before. She was able to turn things around in the first few months of 2025. Talking to CBC News’ chief correspondent Adrienne Arsenault, in an interaction dated September 13, Gabriela Dabrowski peeled back layers on the difficult phase that took her away from tennis. Without a doubt, it was “Tough, yeah. I mean, honestly, obviously the cancer diagnosis was very challenging.” Fortunately, she was able to return to the racket sport “pretty quickly. I had a really good medical team behind me that helped me return to the sport quickly. Um, sort of tailored a little bit of my treatment so that I could compete in the Olympics, you know, put off radiation until afterwards. So, I was lucky in that sense.”

When asked why she didn’t come forth with the details of her medical situation earlier, Dabrowski explained, “It was important to me that only my closest inner circle knew what was going on so that I did feel like I had support. Obviously, you know, from my parents, friends, coaches, doubles partner.”

Of course going public with information regarding one’s health can become overwhelming. As much as people would keep her wellbeing in their thoughts and prayers, the shadow of her illness would overtake her identity as a tennis player. “But, going public with the information too soon felt like very overwhelming to me. Especially the first, four-five months, there were still lot of questions that had to be answered and I didn’t feel equipped to be able to handle that type of attention I guess that could come from sharing my diagnosis.”

Gabriela Dabrowski touched upon why she finally chose to speak up now, and highlighted that “October was Breast Cancer awareness month and then I also had this inkling of wanting to share information because early detection was something that allowed my situation to be easier to manage than had there been a spread. And just at the end of the year I thought, ‘You know what? Let’s go into 2025 and share this news, and maybe it’ll be able to help someone.'”

When life hits you with a mean curveball, there often tends to be a shift in outlook toward oneself and life in general. Dabrowski had a huge realization following her surgery and recovery from cancer. It taught the Canadian WTA star a valuable lesson.

Gabriela Dabrowski on how cancer changed her perspective

In the same interaction, Dabrowski touched upon an important aspect of her struggles while fighting cancer. “I just felt very grateful that I was able to be on the court. One of my coaches, Patrick Daciek, was helping me adapt certain drills. He was tossing the ball for me because I couldn’t lift my left arm high enough to toss the ball on my serve.”

Underlining how this life-altering experience changed her perspective, she added, “all those things meant a lot to me, that everyone was kind of rallying for me. And when I started competing again, I still maintained that perspective of gratitude and feeling like tennis was something that I got to do versus something that I had to do.”

Her moment of epiphany stemmed from her being a tennis player, and by choice. “I haven’t always had the best attitude regarding my tennis. So, cancer was certainly, kind of, almost like a slap in the face to me. But I feel like I took it in the best way that, like, ‘Hey, you have a great life. Be happy for it. You’re one of the lucky ones.'” That’s the best way to approach life: look for the positives even in the most unlikely places, right?

And one can say her changed perspective might have been the driving force behind Gabriela Dabrowski’s US Open triumph this month. With her trusted doubles partner Erin Routliffe, Dabrowski stunned the pair of World No.1 doubles stars, Taylor Townsend and Katerina Siniakova. They also avenged their loss to the same pair from last year, while capturing the trophy for a second time in three years.