Katie Swan cried on a massage table when she found out the opportunity she thought had gone forever was hers after all.
The 27-year-old will make her return to Wimbledon as a wild card next week three years after last stepping on the lawns of the All England Club.
“I was very emotional when I found out,” Swan told the Press Association. “It’s something that, at times in the last couple of years, I didn’t think that I would ever be in a position again for this.
“I’ve been very lucky in the past to have played quite a few times (at Wimbledon). But this year it feels quite a lot different just from where I started to come back to this point. So I’m extremely excited and grateful that I have this opportunity.”
Swan was 15 when she reached the final of the girls’ singles at the Australian Open in 2015 and a great future was predicted but injuries have so far prevented her reaching her potential.
Back problems have been Swan’s nemesis and by mid 2024, after a year of repeated and unsuccessful attempts to overcome spasms, she feared her career was over.
She began coaching at the club near where her parents live in the United States and contemplated life after professional tennis.
“I got to a point where I just didn’t really want to rehab anymore,” she said. “It was too hard. I’d been doing it for so long and I hadn’t really seen any improvements.
“I never really wanted to stop playing tennis, I just couldn’t see a way through physically to keep going.”
In early 2025, things changed with a visit to a doctor in Arizona who tried a different kind of treatment targeting Swan’s nerves.
“It was really excruciating treatment,” she said. “There were times when I cried during the sessions but I just had to trust him because he told me that it was going be worth it and I was going to feel better. It was my last resort.”
Last April, eight months after her last match, Swan returned with no ranking at a tournament in Egypt on the lowest rung of the professional ladder.
There have been a few ups and downs and back niggles but Swan, the youngest player ever to represent Britain in the Billie Jean King Cup, has managed to stay on the court and has slowly worked her way back.
She has won eight titles and earlier this month claimed her first two victories over top-100 players since 2023, elevating her ranking back into the top 200.
Swan is proud of the mentality she has shown, saying: “There were moments where I really was thinking, ‘Why am I doing this again?’
“Because I played my first ever pro tournament in Egypt when I was 15. So I was basically 10 years down the line, starting again in the same place. I was like, ‘Wow, this is really full circle, and not in a good way’.
“I’ve come across a lot of different players that have been very high ranked and then have dropped for whatever reasons.
“The ones that seem to continue to rise are the ones that can accept that where they are is where they are rather than thinking about where they should be.
“And I think that’s been one of my biggest strengths over the last year – just being OK with where I am at that moment. For some people, being able to play a professional tournament in Egypt is their dream.”
Swan’s dream is to play in the grand slams and, hopefully, to finally break into the top 100 for the first time.
“It makes me feel like it was all worth it,” added Swan of her progress. “And I’m just trying to take that into the matches that I play that all of that was for moments like this.
“I’m glad that there was a way out of it and I really think that there’s a lot more for me to give in tennis.”
