Paula Badosa in tears amid worrying Dubai Tennis Championship scenes

The tennis world has rallied around Paula Badosa after the Spanish star broke down in tears on court after yet another injury setback. The former World No.2 has endured a tough run of injuries in recent years having reached a career-high ranking in 2022.

However, the Spaniard has struggled to string performances together having suffered a stress fracture in her back last year. Badosa sat out the remainder of the 2023 season after Wimbledon. The 26-year-old then returned ahead of the Australia Open this year having rested and declared she was ready to tackle the 2024 season.

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Unfortunately, the Spaniard's return took a worrying turn on Monday when she broke down in tears on court as she retired injured against Lulu Sun in the Dubai Tennis Championships. Badosa was on the bench and in tears in what appeared to be a back injury.

Badosa has now retired twice in 2024 after she pulled out of her match in Thailand only a week after the Australian Open. Fans were quick to rally around the tennis star as she deals with another brutal setback during her comeback season.

Paula Badosa breaks down her injury

At the Adelaide International this year, Badosa talked about how she struggled to sit back and bide her time to make a return to the tour last year. "It's an injury that you don't have much under your control," Badosa said back in January. "Because at the beginning I thought, oh, I do more hours of treatment, I do more hours of this or that and I'm going to heal faster. Then I learned that just having patience, try to let it heal on its own.

The Spaniard admitted she loves competing and it was a tough six months away from the game. "But honestly it's a very slow — I was going to say a bad word — but yeah, very slow process."

"It was a very tough process, especially mentally for me to accept all this," she said. "As I always say, I love to play tennis. I love to compete. So all of a sudden one day I had to stop completely and started to have like a normal life — not even a normal life. I had to stay on the couch. so imagine how boring was that." Badosa isn't the only high-profile player to have struggled in recent weeks with injury.

Ons Jabeur struggled to finish the match against Beatriz Haddad Maia at the Abu Dhabi Open as she broke down in tears during the second set. Supporters in the crowd cheered for Jabeur, but the trailblazing Tunisian had to wipe away tears before returning a serve. The Tunisian is also struggling with injury as she tries to play her way into form.

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