Ajla Tomljanovic overcomes serious injury to achieve career-high ranking ahead of first ‘home’ summer

Ajla Tomljanovic is making up for lost time. After overcoming a serious shoulder injury, the newly-minted Aussie earned a career-high ranking and is pumped to play in front of her home crowd under the Australian flag for the first time.

Ajla Tomljanovic in action against Johanna Konta at the 2019 Brisbane International.

Ajla Tomljanovic is making up for lost time.

With her health and Australian passport, the Croatian-born Australian is steeled.

It hasn’t been easy.

Forced to sleep sitting up for almost two months following shoulder surgery, she had another 12 months on the comeback trail.

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A career-high ranking in the top 50 was the reward last year and Tomljanovic wants more.

“There’s things I feel like I can really still improve on and I had a good year, but I still feel like there’s so much I can still do,” Tomljanovic told the Herald Sun.

“In the last part of the season, I started feeling way more confident and playing the bigger players and going out there and believing I can win.

“In the past, maybe that wasn’t the case, because you build your confidence off of wins.

Ajla Tomljanovic in action against Camila Giorgi at the 2019 Sydney International.

“I just didn’t have them for a long time.”

The 25-year-old is ranked 46th and she acknowledges “I’m not one of those players that can just go and win a tournament out of nowhere”.

Now Australia’s third-ranked female — behind Ash Barty and Daria Gavrilova — she knew it would only be hard work that would reap the benefits.

The shoulder surgery in 2016 was a test of not only her patience but her will.

“It was bad, because straight away they told me, ‘you’re out for a year’,” she said.

“In that year when I came back, I didn’t really play a full schedule. I was still recovering and I didn’t really feel like I was back.

“And then this year just past is the first where I felt like I really could train hard and not really think about my shoulder. I could actually focus on getting my ranking up and actually playing.”

She wasted no time in her rehabilitation, but admitted that there had been dark times — not helped by reading up on a few worst-case scenarios — that had only been bearable thanks to those closest to her.

Australia’s female tennis hopes (from left) Ajla Tomljanovic, Daria Gavrilova, Ash Barty and Sam Stosur. Picture: Monique Harmer

“I love to run, so it was hard to just be away from everything,” she said.

“It got a little depressing at times but everything passes, even the bad times. I just got through it.

“I never thought ‘oh my god I’ll never play’.

“But then I listened to some stories and thought ‘whoa, so it is possible’. In the down times when I wasn’t in the best space mentally, I thought about the worst. That’s probably where my family … came in and always talked to me and kept me on a good path.

“They were really positive. Without them, it probably would have been way slower and tougher.”

It’s a determination not to miss opportunities that drives her ahead of a home grand slam.

“(I was) feeling like I’d missed out on certain things which I wouldn’t say was my fault with the surgery and everything,” she said.

“I thought ‘my time in the sport is definitely limited’ and I kind of didn’t want to waste any more time. I wanted to get straight back into it as fast as I could. My determination is a big part of my personality.

“I’m never going to give up or cave in, so that came in handy in that situation.”

To crack the top 20 — and maybe even more — is the aim for the import, who says health makes her anticipate that “I can do great things”.

Nick Kyrgios and Ajla Tomljanovic practice together.

Tomljanovic has been in the spotlight in recent Australian summers following her relationship with top Aussie hope Nick Kyrgios, an area of her life that she doesn’t like to discuss publicly.

She received her Australian citizenship last January after reading up on the Westminster system and local laws, only to find the testing was easier than anticipated.

“I was talking to all the Aussies and I was like ‘do you know this about your government?’,” Tomljanovic said laughing.

“And they were like ‘no’. I was like ‘man I know so much more than you guys’.”

An entire Australian summer in front of her now-official home crowd excites Tomljanovic and presents a feeling she admits she had never experienced.

“Before I got my passport and everything really came into place, I never really had a place where I felt like this, where you have such a big support system and a crowd that’s always behind you no matter who you play,” she said.

“So for me, it’s hard for me to see it as pressure because you want to feel that feeling of winning in front of a crowd for yourself. And also for them.

“What drives me is that feeling when you win and you’ve done it and everyone is cheering for you. It’s special. You can’t get it anywhere else.”

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