Paula Badosa Gilbert was born on November 15, 1997, in New York, in the United States, to parents Mireia Gibert Baró and Josep Badosa Codolar. When she was seven, after her family moved to Barcelona, Spain, she started playing tennis at the Club Tennis d'Aro.
Like many successful tennis players who later succeeded on the main WTA Tour, Badosa was quite successful on the ITF Junior Circuit, reaching the career-high eighth place in the junior rankings.
In the 2015 Roland Garros Girls' Singles competition, Badosa won her only junior Grand Slam title, and despite then progressing to the main women's tour, she could also be considered as one of the players who succeeded a bit later in her career, despite being initially compared to the likes of Maria Sharapova.
She never finished a season in the Top 50 of the WTA Rankings until 2021, which was her most successful season. She won the Indian Wells Masters, reached the semifinals at the Madrid Open, and also reached the semifinals at the WTA Finals, eventually reaching the world no. 2 spot in the rankings in 2022.
Yet, after that, the Spaniard struggled to replicate her success in 2022 despite reaching the semifinals at Indian Wells and the quarterfinals at the Miami Open. Still, she won one title in that season and finished it as the world no. 11 in the rankings.
But the 2023 season was marked by injuries for Badosa, who missed the majority of the calendar and slid down in the rankings, preparing for her comeback in 2024.
