She beat Serena – but for many, that isn’t the only surprise about Ajla Tomljanovic

When Ajla Tomljanovic beat Serena Williams at the Arthur Ashe stadium in the third round of the US Open last year, most people were stunned. But not everyone. “One of my dad’s best friends called me after the match,” explains Tomljanovic. “And he said, ‘You know, in that game you reminded me a lot of when you were 10 years old. You looked exactly the same – like you were in your own little world.’ ”

Oddly enough, this might have been the one vital quality required for victory that night. Surrounded by 24,000 wildly hostile fans, on a court she’d never played (officials were unable to find time for her to hit a few balls on the hallowed ground before the match), against a player she’d grown up idolising, 29-year-old Tomljanovic was quiet and self-contained. But there was clearly something going on inside her dark-haired, down-bent head. In a strange way, she seemed insulated against the moment. Playing the biggest game of tennis in her life, she managed, somehow, to utterly lose herself in the game of tennis.

This ability revealed itself when she was six, in her native city of Zagreb, Croatia. Her parents sent her for some social tennis lessons, just like any other kid. But she did not respond like most six-year-olds. “I was just totally absorbed by it,” she recalls over Zoom, speaking from a pale couch in a pale room in her home in Florida in the US. She has a friendly American accent, with an occasional Slavic edge, and zero Australian twang, though she’s been a citizen of this country since 2018.

“I just wanted to get better and better. I didn’t want all the other kids there; I wanted all the balls only for me. I remember begging my parents to give me my own coach.” She laughs. “And they were like, ‘Well, Ajla, you’re, like, seven. People are going to think we’re crazy parents if we give you your own private coach.’ ” Eventually she wore them down. Her father Ratko had been a professional handball player, a wildly popular game in Europe, and had captained the Croatian side. “I think he was secretly thrilled that I wanted it so badly.”

“I remember begging my parents to give me my own coach. And they were like, ‘Well, Ajla, you’re, like, seven. People are going to think we’re crazy parents if we give you your own private coach.’ ”

What was it that gripped her so strongly? “The fact that you are out there completely alone,” she says. “Whether you do well, or not well, it’s completely on you. And when you’re in a pickle, you have to figure it out. There are so many tough moments where things are not going well: I think it teaches you a lot about life. And about your character.”

In these terms, that historic US Open match was a triumph for both women: for Williams’s willingness to carry the emotional load of the occasion; for Tomljanovic’s bravery in pitting her best-ever results (two quarter-finals at Wimbledon) against her opponent’s (33 grand slam singles finals, 23 victories); for Williams’s steadfast desire, standing like a spangled statue after every point, and for Tomljanovic’s long-limbed, gritted-teeth persistence, fighting for shot after shot, even as she applauded Williams for passing her. “I love Serena just as much as you guys do,” she told the crowd afterwards. “This is a surreal moment … I just thought she would beat me.”

Can a single match change the course of a career? As a child, Tomljanovic showed great promise: she was signed by IMG as a 12-year-old; and her talent was such that her family – father, mother and sister Hana – moved to Chris Evert’s Evert Tennis Academy in Boca Raton, Florida when she was 13 for her to pursue a professional career. Her father, a manager at a vending machine company in Croatia, sat her down before they left. “He said to me, ‘Do you really want this?’ And I said, ‘Yes, Dad, for real.’ And he said, “Okay, promise me two things. Do your best, and listen to your coach.′ ”

Fifteen years later, Tomljanovic is known for her competitiveness and dedication – but she’s yet to fully live up to her early potential. There have been obvious challenges: mononucleosis kept her off the tour for a year in 2012; a torn tendon in her subscapular (shoulder) sidelined her in 2016-17. But more than this, she struggled to find the right balance of mind and body crucial to sporting success. “It’s taken time to harness her very formidable power,” says tennis writer Courtney Walsh: “to reduce the gap between her best and worst games.”

In 2014, she began the process of becoming an Australian citizen, hoping this would give her more opportunities to develop her game. Tennis Australia came to the party, providing support services (sports science, medical, IT) and coaching with Australian David Taylor, who took Sam Stosur to her 2011 US Open win. The process took more than three years, and seems to have had a few rocky patches – she and Taylor parted ways after 18 months, and high-level discussions were required to free Tomljanovic from her obligations as a Croatian national player. But though she’s yet to spend prolonged time here, Tomljanovic has proved a loyal player for Australia.

“She continues to turn up for the country,” says Walsh. “There’s no requirement that she play in national contests, for instance – Nick Kyrgios isn’t playing Davis Cup – but she does, even though that wouldn’t always be the most strategic or lucrative choice for her singles career.”

“She continues to turn up for [Australia] … even though that wouldn’t always be the most strategic or lucrative choice for her singles career.”

She seems a popular player in the local camp. “Ash [Barty] likes her,” Walsh agrees. “I think the turning point was the Fed Cup final in 2019. We were beaten by France, which was devastating, and Ajla got thrashed on the first day. I think a few questions were asked about her then, but [captain and former world number 8] Alicia Molik spoke up for her, and she turned it around and won her next match, which was critical to keep us in the contest. That earned her a lot of respect from Aussie players and tennis lovers.”

She’s also been praised for her handling of questions, immediately following her Wimbledon quarter-final defeat last year, about assault charges laid against Nick Kyrgios by a former partner (he and Tomljanovic were in a relationship more than five years ago); and for her discreet silence about her split from fellow tour player, Italian Matteo Berrettini, mid last year. “She’s very considered, very smart,” says Walsh.

Certainly her win against Williams, and its massive media coverage, has been helpful for her profile – and, presumably, her pay packet. She has existing deals with apparel companies Original Penguin and Omorpho (she is Original Penguin’s first brand ambassador in tennis), and equipment company Wilson, and she recently signed on as an ambassador for champagne house Piper-Heidsieck. An increasing red-carpet presence (including the Met Gala in 2021 with Berrettini), along with fashion shoots with the likes of Vogue Australia, are also evidence of her growing fame off the court.

But what about the game she’s given more than half her life to? Can she finally become the top 20, or even top 10 player she’s always threatened to be? (Of course, Wimbledon results weren’t included in ranking calculations last year because the tournament banned Russian and Belarusian players from competing: if they had been, Tomljanovic would already be in the top 20.)

“Her age is against her, but she has definitely played her best tennis in the past two or three years,” says Walsh of Tomljanovic’s recent run. “Three quarter-finals in six grand slams in the past two years – that alone is exceptionally good. That’s evidence of something!”

What that something might be, and if and when it might arrive, remains to be seen. “I’ve been completely in love with this game for almost all my life,” Tomljanovic admits, “but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been moments when I’ve hated it. I didn’t reach certain points when I’d made up my mind I would, and sometimes those disappointments made me question everything.”

Tennis can be a mercurial master, even – especially, perhaps – for those who love it most. “Even when you’re playing well: that’s not enough. There’s so many other things that need to go right. You need a little bit of luck, and a little bit of … I don’t know, good energy or something?” She shrugs. “Things that aren’t within your control. And although that’s the beauty of tennis, it’s hard to live with. I hate that sense of how much is unknown when you go into a match.”

“I’ve been completely in love with this game for almost all my life, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been moments when I’ve hated it.”

Everyone has their own way of combatting the unknown. Tomljanovic’s father, who travels with her and describes himself, she says, as “my chief volunteer – which means I can’t fire him!” handles it by never booking her hotel room for more than two nights at a time. “And I get that he’s trying to save me money, but sometimes I’m like, ‘Okay, but I’m at Wimbledon in the quarter-finals! I don’t want to move all my stuff today!’ ” Has he changed this strategy since she beat Serena Williams? She laughs. “No. Not at all!”

As for Tomljanovic herself, she’s been trying for some time – when not schlepping her gear across town mid-tournament – to recapture the sense of absorption and flow in the game she felt as a child. For this reason, her father’s friend’s comments about being in her own little world, “were really sweet to hear. Because when I was 10, everyone would describe me as this person who looked so natural on a tennis court. I never needed anybody out there, you know? All I wanted was to win, myself: competing just felt like second nature. I think that’s something that you can’t really teach.

“And I think what played with my head sometimes was that it felt like, down the road, because of all the other factors and pressures, maybe it killed it a little bit for me – maybe I got led away from the gist of the game. But I don’t think your feeling for the game ever really goes away. You’ve just got to find it again from time to time. And it’s taken me until the last year or two really to figure that out. That’s a long time – but that’s my journey, I guess.”

Perhaps that’s how she beat Williams. “I certainly think that’s a match I’ll always look back on and think from start to finish, in those three hours, I just did so many things right,” she agrees. “As a tennis player, there’s not that many days in your career like that: when it’s almost the perfect moment. I can’t really explain why it went like that in that match in particular. It was just one of those nights. And I’ll just always be grateful.”

As for the Australian Open this year, Tomljanovic smiles. “I love playing a slam with the country behind me. I just really want to play well.”

If she does, one thing at least is certain: the Australian crowd will be just as biased in her favour as Williams’ was in hers. “Yeah,” laughs Tomljanovic. “That would be nice!”

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