Just two hours ago 30-year-old Elena Baltacha tweeted a link to the Lawn Tennis Association website where she is breaking the extremely bad news about her health:
I have recently been diagnosed with cancer of the liver. I’m currently undergoing treatment and fighting this illness with everything I have.
I can’t believe this! It is so strange to see so many young athletes being diagnosed with serious illnesses: Alisa Kleybanova has recovered from Hodgkin’s lymphoma and is now slowly making her way back in tennis (she’s now in Indian Wells and has advanced to the second round with a victory over Victoria Duval), Venus Williams has an auto-immune disease called Sjogren’s syndrome, Serena Williams had serious blood clots and in 2008 we had the tragedy of Austrian tennis player Daniela Klemenschits who died of cancer at the age of 25. All this reminds us that no one is immune to serious health problems and we should appreciate our health while we have it!
Britain’s former No.1 Baltacha retired from tennis at the end of last year, after 16 years of playing professionally, and married her coach Nino Severino. Here on Women’s Tennis Blog we informed you about the joyous event and showed you one photo of Elena in the wedding dress. (photo: Christian Mesiano)
do you mean Indian wells, not Miami? Terrible news, bad things can happen to anyone.
P!nky, definitely, I meant IW! Hopefully Elena will manage to overcome this as smoothly as possible.
Horrible news, my thoughts go out to Elena and her family.
It has been week of awful news in the tennis world, tennis writer Matt Cronin is battling cancer right now as well, hopefully both of them will make a full recovery!
OMG that’s terrible. Wishing her positive recovery. I hate this cancer disease with a passion, man. Baltacha is too young to be battling this disease. My prayers go out to her and her family.
Cheers,
Ashley
It’s so discouraging to see young and actually well-off people who are thought to be living a relatively healthy lifestyle be struck with these serious illnesses.
Thank you, Jimmie48, for mentioning Matt Cronin. I saw his announcement on Twitter that he will not attend Indian Wells for the first time in years due to cancer. Oh lord, I suppose that’s life.