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Australian Open champion Caroline Wozniacki was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis before the US Open, the Danish tennis player revealed at the WTA Finals on Thursday.
She made the announcement after being eliminated from the year-end competition following a 5-7, 7-5, 6-3 loss to Elina Svitolina in her third round-robin match.
"It turns out that I have an autoimmune disease, rheumatoid arthritis, which goes in and attacks your joints," Wozniacki said.
"When the body has a lot of fluids in it and you swell up, you get tired, you get exhausted, all these things.
"In the beginning, it was a shock. You feel like you're the fittest athlete out there. That's what I'm known for, and all of a sudden you have this to work with," she said.
The 28-year-old Wozniacki won her first grand slam title at Melbourne Park at the start of the season to briefly recapture the number one ranking after a six-year wait.
After Wimbledon in July, the current world number three began feeling unwell and thought she was suffering from the flu while on vacation.
However, her legs were hurting her when she started playing again and in August in Montreal, she woke up one morning and couldn't lift her arms above her head.
Wozniacki thought she may have glandular fever, but the doctor said she was fine — however more in-depth testing revealed she had rheumatoid arthritis.
Despite the diagnosis, she won her third title of the year in Beijing three weeks ago and said it was initially important to keep the diagnosis a secret.
"Winning [in Beijing] was huge. It also gave me the belief that nothing is going to set me back. I'm going to work with this and this is how it is, and I can do anything." Wozniacki said.
- Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease that targets the lining of the joints, causing inflammation.
- Those affected commonly suffer joint pain, swelling and tenderness as well as stiffness.
- There is no known cause, although there may be a link to those who have a family history of the illness.
- Currently there is no cure, although symptoms can be effectively managed by non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, corticosteroid medicines or through exercise.
"I didn't want to talk about it, obviously, during the year because I didn't want to give anyone the edge or thinking that I'm not feeling well.
"You learn how to just cope after matches.
"Some days you wake up and you can't get out of bed, and you just have to know that's how it is, but other days you're fine. You don't even feel like you have it.
"I didn't want to look it up, I didn't want to Google it, because if you Google stuff you feel like you're going to die," Wozniacki added with a smile.
After the US Open in September, she decided to do more research on rheumatoid arthritis and her doctor said much progress had been made in managing the disease.
"You just have to be positive and work with it, and there are ways you can feel better, so that's great," Wozniacki said.
"It's, obviously, not ideal for anybody. I think when you're a professional athlete, it's even more not ideal.
"But at the end of the day, you find a plan, figure out what to do, do your research, and thankfully there are great things now that you can do about it.
"I'm very proud of how I have been so positive through it all and just kind of tried to not let that hinder me.
"I know there are a lot of people in the world that are fighting with this, and hopefully I can be someone they can look up to and say that if I can do this, then they can too."
AP/ABC
Topics: sport, tennis, arthritis, singapore
First posted