Badosa was born in New York where her Spanish parents were living and working, but the family soon moved back to Spain where she began playing tennis.
She was identified early as someone with the kind of drive and talent to become Spain’s next great women’s player after Arantxa Sánchez Vicario, Conchita Martinez and Garbiñe Muguruza.
She played her first professional satellite tournament at age 14, won two rounds at the Miami Open as a wild-card entrant at age 17 in 2015 and won the French Open junior title later that year. But she struggled with the expectations and the tour, going through a full-blown depression that left her struggling to get out of bed, much less train for competition.
Badosa sought professional help, and found a new coach who helped retool her game and rebuild her confidence, and in January 2019, she qualified for her first Grand Slam tournament at the Australian Open.
She has chosen to be open about her mental-health issues, recording a video in 2019 that recounted her journey. But her rise into the elite began in earnest after the five-month hiatus of the professional tours forced by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Badosa reached the fourth round of the French Open, which had been delayed from the spring until October, and after strong preparation in the off-season she was ready to do well at this year’s Australian Open only to end up, like Azarenka, in hard quarantine after the charter flight to Melbourne.