Tennis star Emma Navarro reveals harrowing yearslong health battle and how she gained my life back
With the tennis calendar in its final few months, Emma Navarro is speaking out about her health and revealing what the last three years have looked like for her.The young American star revealed she was diagnosed with Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S) and Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism in the fall of 2025 in a 14-slide Instagram post Wednesday.The latter is a condition that involves a body that cannot produce enough energy to support the demand of physical activity and daily life.Her great improvement since, in which she “gained my life back,” has encouraged Navarro to pull out of competing in Asia and take the rest of the year off to focus on her medication and nutrition ahead of the Australian Open at the start of 2027.Navarro added in the lengthy and vulnerable post that her journey to this point began in 2023, which was her first full year on tour.In that year, the Charleston, S.C.native climbed from 150 in the WTA rankings to nearly 30 after competing in 88 matches — which she claimed was the most of any man or woman in professional tennis.She went on to win the WTA 250 tournament in Hobart in early 2024 and carried that into a third-round Australian Open appearance.Navarro was pushing herself to the limit, but she said, “I was doing what my team and I thought was best.”“From the outside, things looks great,” she explained as she continued to rise through the ranks, become more athletic on the court and the “fittest” version of herself at that point.
However, Navarro admitted she knew “something was off.Or at least something was different.”Navarro continued to push on throughout the season.She made the quarterfinals at Indian Wells and Wimbledon, pushed to the fourth round of Roland Garros and earned a semifinal berth at the U.S.
Open that gave her a career-high No.8 world ranking.She started to become a household name in America as she continued to prove herself under the brightest lights.However, Navarro detailed the start of h...