Ajla Tomljanovic was born on May 7, 1993, in Zagreb, Croatia, to Croatian father Ratko Tomljanovic and Bosniak mother Emina Tomljanovic. Her father played handball professionally and won the 1992 and 1993 European Cup. She also has an older sister named Hana, who played tennis for the University of Virginia.
Tomljanovic began representing Australia in 2018. She had moved to Brisbane in the latter stages of 2014 to be close to her cousin’s family and to begin training at the Queensland Tennis Centre. Her application for Australian citizenship was approved in February 2018, and she started representing the country at WTA events and at the Fed Cup, which was later renamed to the Billie Jean King Cup.
After playing a small number of WTA Tour matches between 2009-2012, Tomljanovic began to play more regularly on the Tour from 2013. Her best result that year was reaching the fourth round of the Miami Open, a WTA 1000 event.
Tomljanovic’s best moment of 2014 came at the Roland Garros. After beating Mathilde Johansson in the first round, she defeated future world no. 1 Karolina Pliskova. A victory against 2012 Wimbledon runner-up Agnieszka Radwanska took her to the fourth round, where she lost to Carla Suarez Navarro.
2015 saw Tomljanovic reach her first WTA final at the Pattaya Open. She lost a very close match to Daniela Hantuchova 6-3, 3-6, 4-6. Tomljanovic’s progress was then halted by a serious shoulder injury at the start of 2016, which kept her out for the rest of that year.
After fighting her way back up the rankings impressively in 2017, Tomljanovic made two more WTA finals in 2018 at the Rabat Grand Prix and the Korea Open. Unfortunately for her, she lost both finals again against Elise Mertens and Kiki Bertens.
The Australian had another chance to win a title at the Thailand Open in Hua Hin in February 2019. But Tomljanovic suffered heartbreak in the final for a fourth time. She lost an incredibly close match against Dayana Yastremska 2-6, 6-2, 6-7 to leave her continuing to search for a maiden WTA title.
Two more Grand Slam quarterfinals followed in 2022. The first was at Wimbledon again, where she won the first set against the eventual champion Elena Rybakina before losing.
Her second came at the US Open, with that run being ended by Ons Jabeur. Tomlanovic was then struck by a knee injury in 2023, which hugely disrupted her season.
