Ajla Tomljanovic was born in Zagreb in 1993, the daughter of a Croatian handball international, and left home for the Evert Academy in Boca Raton at 13 to turn the junior promise into a career. She turned pro in 2009, broke into the Top 50 in 2015, and — a dual citizen who first played under the Croatian flag — has competed for Australia since being granted citizenship in 2018.
She's a right-hander built around a flat, first-strike baseline game: heavy off both wings, a two-handed backhand she drives through the court, and a willingness to take the ball early and dictate. The serve is a genuine weapon on her best days, but the margins are thin — when the timing slips, the unforced-error count climbs fast. At her sharpest she's a dangerous out for anyone, the kind of ball-striker top seeds don't want in an early round.
Her career peaked at No. 32 in 2022, the season that defined her. She reached the quarterfinals at Wimbledon — backing it up with another at the US Open — and authored the match she'll always be known for: beating Serena Williams in three sets on Arthur Ashe in what became Williams' farewell to tennis. Across her run she's traded big-stage matches with the likes of Emma Raducanu and Marketa Vondrousova, and remained a fixture in Australia's Billie Jean King Cup setup.
Now 33 and ranked just outside the Top 100, Tomljanovic is in the grind phase of her career, fighting to stay in the main-draw conversation at the majors after injury layoffs cost her momentum. The ball-striking still travels; the task this season is stringing enough of it together to climb back inside the seedings before the hardcourt swing.