Like the majority of the WTA Tour, Paula Badosa has only played a few matches this grass season, but they have meant more to her than most.
After a comeback win over two-time Grand Slam champion Coco Gauff at the Berlin Tennis Open, the 28-year-old from Spain reflected on coming out the other side of 12 months of injury difficulty.
“One year ago here I got injured and since then I couldn’t play constantly,” Badosa said on court after a 1-6, 6-3, 6-2 win in the second round of the WTA 500 event, two rungs below the Grand Slams.
“I went through a lot professionally, but personally also, and now seeing myself again playing at this level means a lot. Finally I saw myself on court today.”
Badosa, who has managed a chronic back issue caused by a stress fracture since 2023, tore the labrum — an essential ring of cartilage — in her right hip last summer. She had been dealing with an injury to her right psoas muscle for months before that.
At last year’s Berlin Tennis Open, Badosa reached the quarterfinals before retiring against China’s Wang Xinyu. She played Wimbledon, losing in the first round, then briefly returned at September’s China Open in Beijing before retiring from another match and ending her season.
In early 2026, the former world No. 2 saw her world ranking plummet after she did not defend her points from reaching the 2025 Australian Open semifinals. An injury in the same part of her right leg forced her to retire from a match against Elina Svitolina at the Dubai Tennis Championships, after which Badosa wrote in a social media post:
“You have no idea what it’s like to live with a chronic injury and still choose to keep going. To wake up everyday not knowing how your body will respond, searching for solutions, and fighting for something you love and give everything even when it’s so difficult.”
Since then, Badosa has found rebuilding her world ranking difficult, and came into this year’s event in Berlin on the back of a five-match losing streak. But after defeating Suzan Lamens of the Netherlands for the right to face Gauff, Badosa rebounded from a one-sided first set to clinch her first top-10 win since she beat Emma Navarro at the same tournament one year ago.
“She was playing really really hard … It was really difficult. My coach, after the first set, told me he never saw Coco play like this,” Badosa said of Gauff’s performance in her on-court interview.
“I’m super-happy with the third set, how I managed it, because this year, they weren’t coming to my side,” Badosa, who is now 3-5 in three-set matches in 2026, said.
Badosa’s first serve did more damage as the match progressed. She won fewer than 50 percent of points behind it in the opener, but got that figure up to 61 percent in the second set and then 75 percent in the third. She also started taking the ball earlier and on the rise, which Gauff had been doing behind her forehand in the opening set. In the second and third, the American started letting the ball drop too far below its apex, reducing her aggressiveness and letting Badosa take control of the match.
The loss means Gauff has now not won a match on grass since Wimbledon 2024, with four consecutive defeats. Badosa will play Linda Nosková of the Czech Republic or France’s Diane Parry in the quarterfinals.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Tennis, Women’s Tennis
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