US tennis player Emma Navarro shares that she has reclaimed her life after speaking candidly about chronic health challenges that led to severe weight loss, exhaustion, lightheadedness, and an intense inner rage during matches.
Currently holding the world number 24 spot, Navarro recently secured her first tournament victory in over twelve months at the Strasbourg Open back in May.
The 25-year-old athlete previously peaked at world number eight in 2024, a standout year when she made the quarterfinals of both Wimbledon and the Australian Open, alongside a semifinal run at the US Open in her home state.
However, as 2025 drew to a close, she received a diagnosis of relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S), followed by the discovery that she was also battling Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, an autoimmune condition.
These medical struggles played a role in her dropping nine out of her initial thirteen contests in 2026, ultimately forcing her to pull out of the Charleston Open in late March.
She admitted that because her on-court achievements were surpassing her own goals, she chose to overlook the symptoms that persisted for three years.
“As a relative newcomer to the pro tour, I just followed what my coaches and I deemed correct, which meant constantly driving myself to my physical extremes,” she explained in a detailed Instagram message., external
“And the approach paid off. Externally, everything seemed perfect. I kept hitting career milestones that went way past my hopes, my position in the rankings kept climbing, my game was stepping up, I was becoming quicker and more agile during play, and physically, I appeared to be in the absolute prime of my life.”
Even so, red flags were present. Her weight dropped by roughly 14kg over the course of 2023 and 2024, making her major WTA Tour milestone win at the Hobart International in Australia a conflicted experience.
“Something wasn’t right. I was dealing with feelings that were entirely foreign to me, or at least never this intense. I felt irritable, frustrated, overly perfectionistic, anxious, and, strangely for my personality, extremely angry,” she noted.
“I recall being consumed by an overwhelming rage during that tournament week in Hobart, to the point of wanting to break every single racket I owned—an urge I had never previously experienced.
“The smallest details began to irritate me—my coaching staff, bystanders, anything that disrupted my preferred schedule, any minor flaw during play, each error, and every dropped point. Still, I did my best to mask these feelings and maintain my composure. On top of that, I was constantly starving, feeling hungry every single hour of the day.”
Navarro further detailed how she battled persistent head pain, lightheadedness, mental cloudiness, exhaustion, anxiety, and emotional volatility throughout 2025. Eventually, consultations with physicians, dietitians, and other medical experts revealed that she had not been consuming enough calories to fuel her body for nearly that whole duration.
Though she has opted out of the Asian tournament swing to focus on recovering for the upcoming season, she concluded: “I put some weight back on this year, but in doing so, I got my life back. I now possess the vitality to make the most of each day, to push myself in practice and matches on my own terms, and to enjoy a fulfilling existence away from the court.”
