Carla Suárez Navarro, the former No. 6 tennis player in the world, announced Tuesday that she's been diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma.
She withdrew from the US Open before the tournament began and revealed the news on her social media accounts Tuesday with a video that appeared to be filmed in a hospital room.
Speaking in her native Spanish, Suárez Navarro, 31, said she was diagnosed a few days ago and would need six months of chemotherapy. She then shared she was feeling fine and calm and was willing to face whatever comes.
Many of her peers, including Venus Williams, Sloane Stephens, Madison Keys and Eugenie Bouchard, shared their well wishes and encouraging words on her post.
In a statement shared with the WTA, the Spaniard said she hadn't been feeling well for some time and had been unable to practice since July. Suárez Navarro said she underwent a series of tests to determine the cause.
"The clinical results were confirmed: I was diagnosed with Hodgkin Lymphoma," Suárez Navarro wrote. "The doctors told me that it was small, curable lymphoma detected at an early stage. The treatment required is clear: I must complete a treatment with six months of chemotherapy.
"That's the only goal I have in mind right now. Everything else becomes automatically secondary."
Suárez Navarro, a seven-time major quarterfinalist and two-time winner on the WTA Tour, had previously announced that 2020 would be her final year playing professional tennis. She last played at the Qatar Total Open in February before the season was shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Garbine Muguruza dedicated her first-round win over Nao Hibino at the US Open on Tuesday to Suárez Navarro.
"I was expecting to see her in this tournament," Muguruza said. "You know, she's such a nice woman, so sweet, so kind, so humble. When these things happen to these good people, I feel so sad about it.
"I, for sure, will dedicate this win to her because I want her to feel that we are behind her, that I am behind her, and I will go and see her at some point when it's fine. ... We shared a decade of emotions and everything. It's a shock for me, somebody so close that is going through this."