Australian Open: Cici Bellis and the amazing comeback from being told she'd never play again

It wasn’t just Bellis’s lowly ranking which made this one of the biggest surprises in Melbourne – it was the fact that as recently as October, she was told she would never be able to play tennis again due to a debilitating run of injuries.

Only 20, it had been two full years since the American took part in a Grand Slam but she now finds herself facing Elise Mertens, who defeated Heather Watson, in the last 32 of the Australian Open.

In 2014, Bellis announced herself to the tennis world when, at 15, becoming the youngest player to win a US Open match in 18 years, and Anna Kournikova in 1996, when defeating 12th seed Dominika Cibulkova.

Born in the same year that Serena Williams was crowned US Open champion for the first time, Bellis rose as high as No. 35 in the world by the age of 17, but then the injuries began to hit…

The end of 2017 saw Bellis lose four consecutive first-round matches, and by February of 2018 she was suffering badly from an arm injury, and required surgery to correct some tears in her wrist. Two more bouts of surgery followed, including a procedure which required her to have one of the bones in the right arm shortened, with a plate put in place.

Bellis had so much time off, she started taking online college courses. Setback after setback gave her ample time to focus on her studies as she completely stepped away from the very highest levels of tennis.

"Cici has had a really tough time these past two years; it's been a lot of ups and downs, she had to do a lot of rehab," said coach Tom Gutteridge. "A ton of time off the court, just making sure her body was ready to train again."

Bellis visited a doctor in October and received the terrible news that she would never be able to play professional tennis again. But she took three separate opinions and duly returned at a Challenger Series event in Houston.

"I got an MRI and then three separate other doctors said that I was gonna be fine," Bellis told WTA Insider. "So I took that and ran with it. I'm fine right now and I'm feeling really good. I don't have any pain anywhere.

"So right after that appointment that I had, my team and I decided we were going to try and make a tournament this year. Just to get to a tournament was the main goal and try and get through a match. So about a month ago was when we decided we were going to try and get here."

Bellis was beaten by Kirsten Flipkens in the third round in Houston, but she was back.

Now the Australian Open wild card will see just how far she can go…