In some ways, though, pain has made the woman fans refer to as “Danimal”—for her fierce, at times confrontational on-court persona—softer. “I wasn’t somebody that was comfortable with being vulnerable until I started dealing with chronic pain,” she said. “In sports, vulnerability isn’t something you try to lean into much, because you’re always trying to be tough, to be competitive. In order to do that, you have to suppress certain emotions.”