When Caroline Wozniacki retired from tennis in 2020 after a Grand Slam-winning 15-year career that saw her ranked as the world's best player—twice—she wasn't “taking a break” or considering her options: She was done. Recently, though—after having two children with her husband, former NBA player David Lee—Wozniacki began hitting the ball again with a renewed sense of purpose, and with the support and encouragement of her family, she's decided to return to the game she loves. We'll let her pick up the story from here.
I was seven years old when I first played tennis, in a small club south of Copenhagen. My parents, my older brother, Patrik, and their friends would put me up in the umpire’s chair—“Caroline, sit up there and judge our match”—and would never listen to anything I said. One day I put my foot down and said, “No—I’m going to play.”
I spent hours at the practice wall, and pretty soon I got the hang of it. My dad would be pleading, “Come on, Caroline—we have to have dinner.” And I’d just say, “I’m not ready yet.” I was competitive, even at that age. No matter what we were doing—Monopoly, card games, sports—I wanted to be the best, and I wanted to win.
Everyone in my family is athletic: My mom used to play volleyball on the Polish national team, and my dad played professional soccer in both Poland and Denmark. But within a year I’d beat my mom at tennis, and when I was 10 I beat my brother, who was 14. He became so upset that he quit the sport forever (he went on to play professional soccer in Denmark). I never beat my dad—he’s so competitive that any time I got close, he’d find a way to stop the match.
Three years ago, having achieved almost everything I’d ever set out to do, I walked away from the professional tour. I wanted to start a family, and I needed a break. I had no idea how long that break would last. But then, one day late last year, I found myself setting up a couple of sessions on the court. And when my dad visited me in Florida, I realized I needed advice. I hit for 20, 30 minutes—I’m not sure how long, but at one point I looked at him and said, “I feel like I’m hitting it better than I ever have. Am I making that up?”
He said I wasn’t making that up. And that’s when I knew I had to get back out there.
When I was 10, I won the Danish 12 and under national championship, and afterward, on national television, a reporter asked me: “What are your goals—do you want to just play for fun? Do you want to go to college?” And I looked him straight in the eye and I said: “I want to be number one in the world, and I want to win a Grand Slam.” The parents standing near me smiled the kind of smile that says, “Aww—look at this cute little kid and her crazy dreams.”
Even then I had a burning ambition to prove people wrong—to do things that people didn’t think I could do. Denmark is a small country, and nobody there had ever won a Grand Slam. So? I’d be the first—I’d show everybody that it’s possible, and then other kids could follow.
Meanwhile, I was obsessed with Anna Kournikova’s tennis outfits, which were so colorful and so stylish—I begged my parents to buy them for me, but my dad sat me down and told me: “All of this costs a lot of money. If it’s what you really want, I can get you the number of the CEO of Adidas Denmark—tell him who you are, what you do, and ask him.”
Ten-year-old me was like, “Really? You’re going to ask me to call him?” A week went by, but then one day Dad told me that he’d found the phone number and that the CEO was expecting my call. I dialed the number and heard this big, grown-up voice pick up the phone.
“Hello. How can I help you?”
I said, “Hi, my name is Caroline Wozniacki. I play tennis. I’m really good. I won the national championships—six-love, six-love in all my matches. I’m going to be number one in the world, and I think you would like to get in on this early.” (Clearly, I did not suffer from a lack of confidence.)
Soon after that, I would be sent the Adidas catalogs every season, and I could pick whatever I wanted. My favorites were these navy shorts with a belt and a navy sleeveless V-neck shirt, tucked in, that Kournikova wore. I started wearing that, along with this one-sleeve dress that I saw on Martina Hingis, which I loved, and so much more. I was in heaven.
I won the women’s national championship in Denmark, and then at 15 I won the Wimbledon juniors, turned pro, and started living my dream. Five years later—on October 10, 2010—I had done it: I was number one in the world.
It almost seemed too easy. I was young and had no fear and I had made it to the pinnacle of my sport before I realized how difficult that really is. It was only when I lost the top ranking a year or so later that I understood how important and how rare the whole experience was. And of course, me being me, I wanted to get back there again. But it’s always harder the second time around. Everyone knows all your strengths and weaknesses—you can’t hide—so you’ve just got to be one step ahead.
It took me a long time—but when I won the Australian Open in 2018, the feeling of becoming number one again was completely different. It combined everything that had come before and everything I had in me to fight my way back. That—and to have my family there to see it—meant everything to me.
Amid all the excitement, I thought about my dream as a little girl—how badly I had wanted to be here, and how proud that little girl would be of me now. I felt like I’d done everything that I wanted to do in tennis—and I’d met David, the love of my life, and we were married and planned to start a family.
And then one day, I woke up and couldn’t get out of bed. I was in so much pain that I couldn’t even brush my hair or brush my teeth. Eventually, after going through five, six, seven doctors, I learned that I had a chronic inflammatory disease—rheumatoid arthritis.
My joints had swollen up so painfully because my immune system was in overdrive attacking my body. And though I stayed on tour and gutted it out, all I wanted to do was sleep. (At one point, after a match, I slept for 43 out of 48 hours.)
My rheumatologist and I came up with a plan: I’d take extraordinary care to walk, run, swim—anything, really—just to keep my joints moving; I’d hydrate myself relentlessly and eat a very particular kind of anti-inflammatory diet. It was complicated and precise, but effective—until I reached a point where the entire process became too exhausting: keeping tabs on every single detail of what I ate, how much water I’d been drinking; putting in all the hours, every single day, on the court and in the gym and monitoring my recovery and traveling. That’s when I knew I needed a break.
I announced my retirement just before I played the Australian Open in 2020. In the third round there, I lost in three sets to Ons Jabeur, and everyone in the stadium sang “Sweet Caroline.” It was emotional. It was bittersweet. But at the same time, I knew it was the right thing for me.
David and I spent some time traveling around Australia, and then New Zealand; we climbed Kilimanjaro with my parents, and then David’s mother and my brother joined us and we hiked through the mountains in Poland during a blizzard, using breathing techniques we’d learned to keep us from freezing. It was the most incredible experience of our lives. When COVID hit, David and I spent two months in St. Louis, where David is from, and then we rented a house on this tiny Danish island called Bornholm, south of Sweden and east of the mainland. We quarantined there with our best friends in a farmhouse with a huge piece of land, close to the water, and after that we rented a house north of Copenhagen.
Soon afterward, I realized I was pregnant with Olivia, and then, last October, our son James was born. (My RA, mercifully, went into remission during both pregnancies.) I felt so happy—David felt it too. Our family was in the best place ever.
You’re so selfish as an athlete. David played 12 seasons in the NBA, and he’d agree with me: Your entire focus is being the best competitor that you can possibly be. But then having a child turns your world upside down. It’s not about you anymore—it’s about this little human, and their schedule, their milestones, doing what they need to do. It’s a whole new world of wonder, and it changed us.
I didn’t hit a tennis ball until after James was born, more than two years after my last match. It’s hard to say why, or what changed, but when my dad saw me practice that day, and said, “It looks like you’re enjoying it more”—that was exactly how I felt: I was relaxed and having fun, and somehow that let me see everything more clearly.
A few weeks later, between Christmas and New Year’s, David and the children and my dad and my mom were on a beach. Olivia was running around, having a blast, and as I sat there looking out across the water, I just kind of blurted out to David:
“I’ve been hitting it well.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve been watching.”
“Should I come back?” I asked, more rhetorically than anything.
“Honestly, why not?” David said, after a moment. “We only live once.”
So I’m going to play the US Open. There’s just an electric atmosphere in New York that I can’t get enough of, and I’ve played so well there for years and years. Also, David was a New York Knick for five seasons—we both love it there. I’ll start out playing in Montreal just to get back into the groove, and then we’ll all head to New York. After that, I’ll have a couple of months to prepare for Australia, and we’ll take it from there. The Paris Olympics are definitely a goal too.
How long will I be able to play at my highest level—a year, two years, three years? I don’t know. But I know that five years from now, when the kids are in school, it will be too late. I’m not going to make any bold predictions—but if I didn’t believe in myself, I wouldn’t be doing this: I’m too competitive to just show up and not feel like I’m going to be one of the best players out there.
Of course, with my RA, I’ve been paying careful attention to how my body is reacting. And, honestly? So far, so good. The long break seems to have done wonders in terms of recovery, and mentally, I’m fresh. I’m not putting as much pressure on myself, but at the same time I know when I’m out there, I’m going to be fighting.
There’s also this thing in tennis: Matches often come down to just a few crucial moments, and whether you win or lose depends entirely on how you react. Are you going to get tight and tentative, or are you going to go for it? I think when you have a different perspective—when you realize that you’ve been preparing for these moments almost every day of your life—you dare to go for those moments. So I’m not going to hold back. I’m going to have fun doing it.
Serena [Williams] and I had dinner a few weeks ago, and when I told her my plan she just said, “Wow—good for you. I’m going to cheer you on every step of the way, and if you ever need anything, I’m here.” She’s always been there for me.
I think that Serena doesn’t get nearly enough credit for getting to so many Grand Slam finals after having Olympia. Her retirement will always be bittersweet, both for me and for so many other players, because she’s meant so much to women’s tennis. She paved the way for so many of us—she showed us that anything is possible. As women, I think we need to be strong, to stand up for what we believe in and not be afraid to say I can be the best at something.
I’ve talked with a lot of women who gave up on their own dreams because they wanted to be with their families, but somewhere deep down they have this yearning to do something they’re passionate about. I want to show those women that maybe there’s a way. It’s certainly not easy to find the right balance—and I’m so lucky to have a supportive husband and supportive parents, and the help of a nanny—but I think it’s possible. I want to prove that to myself and to those women. You can have both: You can be thrilled with your family and with everything at home and still have a career—and be great at it.
Let’s also understand: Most of the men on tour don’t have to retire to have a family—they can play through. You had Roger [Federer], who had four children while playing. Novak [Djokovic] has two, and Rafa [Nadal] has a child; [Andy] Murray has four. For the women, though, it’s mostly been either/or, and I’d like to be part of changing this. Victoria Azarenka, Kim Clijsters, and Serena have already shown what it takes to have a child and return to the tour. It’s not easy by any means, but it is possible.
Am I nervous? Not really. I’m coming back to something I love. Yes, I’ll be nervous before a match; I’m okay with that. I’m great with that. Can I win the US Open? I think so. Can I win the Australian Open? I think so. That’s why I’m doing this. And I guess we’ll see what happens.
I think it’s a great story. I think it’s awesome.
In this story: hair, Eddy De La Peña; makeup, Lennie Billy.