Ajla Tomljanović

Born in Zagreb, Croatia, Ajla Tomljanovic represents Australia after earning her citizenship in 2018.

Ajla started playing tennis at six-years-old in Metalac, Croatia, following in the footsteps of her older sisters who also played tennis.

By thirteen years of age Ajla had moved to Florida to undergo more extensive training at the Evert Tennis Academy in Boca Raton.

The talented tennis player showed promise early in her career, winning the 2009 Australian Open girls' doubles title with American Christina McHale, at just sixteen-years-old. She also upset 3rd seed Agnieszka Radswanka in the third round of the French Open in 2014. 

Ajla reached her maiden WTA final in Pattaya City, Thailand in 2015 but was defeated by Daniela Hantuchova.

She struggled with a shoulder injury throughout the beginning of the 2016 season and underwent surgery at the conclusion of the Australian summer, and would not return to competition for another 12 months.

Although she managed to make it into the later stages of her comeback tournaments six months post-operation. Ajla represented her birth country, Croatia, in all competitions until January 2018 when she received Australian citizenship and was able to compete under the Australian flag. 

A purple patch of form followed, making it to back-to-back semifinals on the WTA 125k Series in early 2018. She seemed unaffected by her previous injury, making another final at the Korea Open in September. She finished the year at number 43 on the WTA rankings.

Ajla represented Australia in the Fed Cup Tournament for the first time in 2019, where the team finished as finalists, defeated by France 3-2 in the final. She also reached a then career-high ranking that year of number 39 in the world.

At Tokyo 2020 in her Olympic debut, Ajla went down in the second round of singles action to Elina Svitolina of Ukraine. A strong start was met with a Svitolina fightback, who won the match 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 and eventually the bronze medal in Japan.

In 2022, Ajla reached back-to-back quarter-finals at the final two grand slams of the calendar year. She dropped only two sets by the time she reached the quarter-finals at Wimbledon, where she was bested by no.17 seed and eventual champion Elena Rybakina. Similarly, Ajla fell in the US Open quarter-finals to Ons Jabeur, the eventual finalist of the tournament. 

Ajla finished the 2022 season with a career-high singles ranking of 33, however, a knee injury plagued her 2023 campaign. Ajla returned with an opening round win at the US Open at the back end of 2023, only to be too sore to take to the court again in New York.

In 2024 Ajla competed in the Australian Open once again where she made the second round and took no.11 seed Jelena Ostanpenko to three sets.

Ajla Tomljanovic was excited to be officially selected for her second Olympic Team for Paris 2024 after spending most of the year to date recovering from surgery in February to remove fibroids from her uterus.

“When Tokyo ended, I remember thinking to myself I have to work really hard to make it to Paris because being at the Olympics was a dream come true and I wanted to experience it again,” Ajla said. “So, to be officially selected feels great!

“I am feeling good, I feel like every match I have under my belt brings me closer to the level of play I want to get to. Physically I am pulling up well after matches, which is the most important thing, so I am very happy with my health, and I think the more time I get on court the better I will be for Paris.”