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After a rancid year filled with freak injuries, lengthy layoffs and doubts that dug deep into her soul, Jodie Burrage’s first grand slam match in 12 months could not have met a more satisfying ending. One point away from one the most significant victories of her career, the 25-year-old’s forehand clipped the top of the net and dribbled down onto the opposite side of the court as a clean winner. Finally, her bad luck has turned.
The emotions flowed as soon as Burrage’s 6-2, 6-4 first-round victory over Leolia Jeanjean, a qualifier, was complete. First she covered her face with both hands in disbelief, then she retreated to her chair and wept into her towel. “It was always going to come out at some point,” she said later.
Burrage has beaten many superior tennis players to Jeanjean in her career, reached a WTA final and scaled as high as No 85 in the world in 2023. What made this success so important was the nightmare that preceded it.
Eleven months ago, Burrage was enjoying the best period of her career as she travelled to San Diego. Half an hour into her first practice session there, she struck a backhand and felt a sharp pain in her wrist. Despite initially being told by local doctors that the injury would only set her back 10 days, she was eventually informed that the subsheath holding down the tendon in her wrist had crumbled and, having already undergone three ankle surgeries, a fourth career surgery awaited. She was expected to be out for four to six months.
Through her professional and diligent work, Burrage cut down her recovery period and she felt prepared to return at the French Open three and a half months later. Instead, the day before she was due to fly to Paris, Burrage slipped and turned her ankle. Subsequent tests revealed that she ruptured a ligament. Although she avoided a fifth surgery, her additional 10-week layoff forced her to miss the French Open and Wimbledon as her absence extended to six months.
“I still have PTSD every time I run for a dropshot,” said Burrage, laughing. “And I am not practising with Katie Boulter ever again. Every time I’m on the practice court with her, I hurt myself. Genuinely. I fractured my knee against her, done my ankle.”
Having arrived in San Diego last year one spot below her career-high ranking, Burrage’s six-month absence sent her ranking plummeting to No 332 last year. She is eligible to enter a limited number of tournaments using her protected ranking – the ranking she held before the injury – but her absence has forced her to return to the lowly ITF circuit she thought she had finally left behind as she tried to rebuild her ranking again. Towards the end of last year, she was deeply unhappy and unsure if she could go on.
“I was basically crying mid-session saying I don’t know how much more fight I’ve got,” said Burrage. “I fought so hard to get back to a position where I could even play the sport, and then I was winning matches, obviously those ITF events, making semis and stuff, but it’s not where I wanted to be and I wasn’t happy with how I was playing. I didn’t know how much more fight I had. It takes a lot.”
A player’s fortunes can turn so quickly in tennis. Days after she was crying on the court, Burrage ended her season with the biggest title of her career, winning a W100 event in Dubai, and she has started the new season full of confidence. She believes that she is better than she has ever been.
“Every surgery I feel like I’m coming back stronger. I might keep having them…” she said. “No, I’m kidding. I’m done. Please, God, no more. I am stronger, for sure. I’m growing as a player, growing as a person, and I don’t know why all the surgeries and injuries are happening to me, but it’s making me a better person and a better player.
As she demonstrated against the tricky, difficult but underpowered Jeanjean, Burrage has enough quality to compete against the best tennis players in the world. She is a forceful, attacking baseliner and alongside her solid first serve, she possesses a wonderful, destructive two-handed backhand. Managing the pressure and stress of the tour, along with her injuries, have been a greater challenge. Burrage cites the hours spent in the gym and rehab as fortifying her resolve.
“I think the amount of times I have been injured and the effort that it takes to get back, the fight that it takes to do an hour and a half of rehab in the morning and then go do physical and then get on the court and then do it all again the next day, for six months, the work that you put in. This is easy. Coming here, training here is easy.”
An extremely difficult challenge awaits Burrage in round two as she faces off against the most in-form player in the draw, Coco Gauff. Gauff moved into the second round with a clinical 6-3, 6-3 win over Sofia Kenin, the 2020 Australian Open champion. Iga Swiatek, the No 2 seed, also registered a comfortable 6-3, 6-4 win over Katerina Siniakova.
