{"id":911509,"date":"2026-09-30T22:32:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T22:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/911509\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T22:32:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T22:32:11","slug":"emma-navarro-us-star-opens-up-on-health-struggles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/911509\/","title":{"rendered":"Emma Navarro: US star opens up on health struggles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">American Emma Navarro says she has gained her &#8220;life back&#8221; after opening up on long-running health problems that caused significant weight loss, fatigue, dizziness and left her &#8220;feeling deep internal anger&#8221; on the court. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Navarro, who claimed her first title in more than a year at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/tennis\/articles\/c3923l29g7lo\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Strasbourg Open<\/a> in May, is currently ranked 24th in the world. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 25-year-old was as high as eighth in 2024, the year she reached the quarter-finals at the Australian Open and Wimbledon, and the last four at the US Open in her native New York. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But towards the end of 2025 she was diagnosed with relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S) and subsequently found out she was suffering with the autoimmune disorder Hashimoto&#8217;s hypothyroidism.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Those issues contributed to her losing nine of her first 13 matches in 2026 and withdrawing from the Charleston Open at the end of March.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She says she initially ignored problems that dogged her for three years due to  exceeding her expectations on the court.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Being new to professional tennis, I was doing what my team and I thought was best, and pushing myself to the limit was always my MO,&#8221; she wrote in a<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/Dd6ujadHPdz\/?img_index=8&amp;stkn=MWUzZTNieXF1czAwdA%3D%3D\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> lengthy post on Instagram., external<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;And it worked. From the outside, things looked great. I continued to achieve tennis milestones that far exceeded my expectations, my ranking was rising, my level continued to improve, I continued to get faster and more athletic on the court, and I looked to be the strongest, fittest version of myself I had ever been.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Yet the warning signs were there. She lost about 14kg in weight during 2023 and 2024, and her breakthrough WTA Tour victory at the Hobart International, Australia proved a bittersweet moment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I was off. I was experiencing emotions I had never experienced before, at least not to this severity. Irritability, frustration, perfectionism, worry, and bizarrely for me, anger,&#8221; she added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I remember feeling deep internal anger on the court that week in Hobart, like I wanted to smash every racket in my bag (something I had never done or wanted to do). <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Everything began to annoy me. My team, other people, anything that didn&#8217;t align with my specific preferences or routines, any imperfection on the court, every mistake, every point I lost. But I tried my hardest to not let people see how I felt, to keep it together. Additionally, I was hungry. Every hour of the day, I was hungry.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Navarro, went on to explain how she had struggled with &#8220;headaches, dizziness, brain fog, fatigue, anxiousness and mood swings&#8221; through 2025, before meeting with doctors and nutritionists and various specialists, and realising she had been under-fueling for almost the entire period. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">While she is missing the Asian swing as part of her recovery for next season, she added: &#8220;I gained some weight this year. But I also gained my life back. I have enough energy to seize every day, to train or compete as hard as I want to, and to live a life outside of tennis.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"American Emma Navarro says she has gained her &#8220;life back&#8221; after opening up on long-running health problems that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":911510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-911509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=911509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/911510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=911509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=911509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=911509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}