Behind Joanna Garland's globe-spanning, Radiohead-soundtracked 2025 rise

Note: Throughout December, wtatennis.com will be running a series of interviews with players who are poised to make a mark in 2026 after impressive comebacks or breakthroughs in 2025.

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After a year in which Joanna Garland made her Grand Slam debut, her first WTA semifinal and cut her ranking from No. 551 to No. 121, the 24-year-old's choice of music as she makes her way to and from her off-season training is perhaps surprising.

"The playlist I've been listening to is called Depressing Radiohead Songs," the 24-year-old Chinese Taipei player reveals via video call from her base in the Netherlands. "It's gloomy, dark and cold."

It's not the uptempo dance or hip-hop favored by most WTA players -- indeed, Garland has yet to meet a fellow Radiohead fan on tour. ("If there are any, tell them to get in touch and we can be nerds and discuss their music," she said.) But the British rock group have been a consistent soundtrack to Garland's multicultural, cross-continental journey -- one that hit its stride in 2025 after she put a series of injuries behind her to rise to the edge of the Top 100.

This time last year, Garland was grinding her way through a pair of ITF titles in Sharm el Sheikh, part of a 29-match winning streak that enabled her to break the Top 200 this May. That month, she also qualified and reached the second round of Roland Garros, defeating Katie Volynets for her first career Top 100 win; she rounded off the season by reaching the Chennai semifinals last month.

Find out about her experience of navigating disparate tennis cultures, how she plotted her way back from injury, which Chinese Taipei champion was a formative childhood influence and, of course, why Radiohead mean so much to her below.

From Stevenage to Kaohsiung

Garland grew up in the British town of Stevenage -- her father is British and her mother is from Chinese Taipei, and the family already had links to the Chinese Taipei tennis world. Her father had previously been a member of the same club as Chuang Chia-Jung, the former doubles No. 5, and the family would host her between Roland Garros and Wimbledon every year.

"It was really inspiring," Garland said. "She's so lovely. She was always really humble and took the time to speak with us kids."

But Garland's eventual move to Kaohsiung, Chinese Taipei at the age of 10 wasn't specifically for tennis reasons. Instead, her family wanted to immerse her and her siblings in their mother's culture.

"We couldn't even speak Mandarin," Garland said. "The plan was to stay for six months, and we ended up staying for five years as a family. They then moved back to the UK, and I finished high school in Chinese Taipei."

In Chinese Taipei's educational system, which placed talented athletes in a separate class, Garland went from playing casually with little thought of a future in the sport to training daily, under far stricter coaches than she had experienced before. At the same time, she was no longer excelling in school -- as she had in Britain -- while adjusting to a new language.

How Radiohead provided a link back to family

It was here that Garland's love of Radiohead ("Such gorgeous sounds, raw guitar-based rock and the best blends of alternative rock, electronic and ambient music you'll ever hear") deepened. She had discovered their music -- particularly her favorite albums, "The Bends" and "OK Computer" -- through her father; he had been introduced to them by her mother, a family connection she finds touching.

"For some reason that made me fall in love with them even more," she said. "Listening to those albums gives me this quiet connection to both of my parents. It makes me imagine them being young, happy and stress-free before they had me, which makes me smile."

In Chinese Taipei, they also became indelibly intertwined with her tennis career.

"Back when I was travelling for national tournaments with my school team, phones would always get confiscated by our coaches," she said. "My MP3 player was my main source of entertainment. So there's this nostalgic element to Radiohead too, as that was lots of what I was blasting through my headphones. Therefore I associate some of the great memories I have and matches I played with their music."

It was here, being challenged by a new culture while music continued to connect her to Britain and her family, that Garland realized a professional career was something she could aim for.

"If we hadn't moved, I would have probably stopped playing tennis," she said. "Maybe I would play for fun once or twice a week. [Both regions] are quite different. There's not much structure in [Chinese Taipei], but the environment is good because it's competitive and tennis is very accessible there -- it costs nothing to play, unlike Britain."

But as an outsider, Garland also saw a cultural gap that she felt prevented her peers from fulfilling their athletic potential.

"It's always, 'You're not doing well enough, it's so tough to make it as a pro, you're not gonna do it, it costs too much money,'" she said. "There's just always a reason why you can't do it. But actually, there's a lot of talent there. I think the kids work really hard and they're very polite, they're very grounded. They just need to be given a lot more belief."

Injury setbacks ... and a cross-continental path back

Garland needed every ounce of belief herself after injuries struck at the start of 2024. First was the wrist: she split her ECU tendon as well as tearing the TFCC, and could only hit backhand slices for the next four months. As soon as the wrist was fully healed, she rolled her ankle in practise. 

"I was so keen to get back playing again, I kept rushing it," Garland said. "I kept trying to practise when I should have been resting and rehabbing, played a couple of tournaments that I should not have played, and I was still struggling with the ankle."

Behind Garland's impatience was a "tough" decision she'd made the previous year over whether to switch nationality to Great Britain.

"It was a big headache," she said. "Part of me was like, hey, maybe there's this big opportunity here. And then the other part of me was like, I love [Chinese Taipei]."

In the end, Garland opted to continue representing Chinese Taipei, whose federation she credits with supporting her throughout her career. With that, though, came self-imposed pressure to see if she could qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, and worries over whether she'd made the right decision.

"I wish I just spent more time on myself," Garland recalled. "Like, really taking good care of myself, and not trying to do things or trying to rush back into things for other people."

It was September 2024 by the time Garland's body had finally healed -- and her journey back took her to some of the most extreme outposts of the ITF Tennis Tour. In Kayseri, Türkiye, she dodged snow and hail to play in freezing temperatures. In Solarino, Italy, it rained so much that she had to play two matches in one day. In Nairobi, Kenya, the feeling of inspiring the children who watched her was as special as the trophies she racked up.

Garland had planned her schedule very deliberately, with a goal of returning to Grand Slam qualifying.

"Kayseri, hardcore altitude," she recalled of her thought process. "Hopefully the ball is going to bounce so I can really utilize my kick serve and my topspin forehand. Carpet in Italy, the ball's gonna shoot through the court. A lot of girls won't like it but I can hit a big ball, so probably quite smart to play there. Sharm, I love the courts there, they're fast. Nairobi, there wasn't much on. We're like, OK, altitude, probably not the strongest event -- go there."

Rediscovering her power ... and love of the game

All the grinding paid off. Garland's hefty, no-nonsense power game paid off as soon as she reached tour level this year. It's a style of play that came naturally to her, but which she feels she's had to rediscover.

"When I was a junior that was my game," she said. "I wouldn't take no for an answer when it came to attacking. As soon as the ball comes down slow, I'm up the court and hitting it hard. I kind of lost that a little bit when I was 19 to 21. I got told I was a bad defender. I did a lot of work on my defense and I think lost my identity a bit. I didn't feel I had a style. I was going through the process of a match without having a game plan to focus on."

Garland attributes her turnaround to her work with Dutch coach Tim de Rooij, who has emphasized strengthening her strengths. The forehand, already a weapon, is even bigger after working on racquet acceleration. The backhand is a shot she's learned to go all-out with as well. It's all feeding into a virtuous cycle of belief that the power she can produce will see her into the Top 100 sooner rather than later.

That's also helped her move on from her last match of the 2025 season -- a heartbreaking loss to Kimberly Birrell in the Chennai semifinals in which Garland, suffering from heat illness and barely able to move, lost a 5-0 final-set lead. It made for distressing scenes at the time, but asked about it now, Garland throws her head back and laughs. Discussions with her coach and sports psychologist since have helped her take the positives.

"As much as it hurts, I played such good tennis in that match," Garland said. "I was only one point away from a WTA final, which is not very far away. I don't think I did anything wrong, and credit to Kim, who played some pretty awesome tennis and hung in there. It was the perfect match to end the season with, even if I didn't win."

Garland's experience with ill-timed injuries has taught her not to set definitive goals. But her scenic route to this point -- and the taste of the main tour she's had in 2025 -- has only made her hungrier for more.

"I love this life," she said. "I've enjoyed it so much. I've learned I'm capable of more than I think. A few days off, and I wanted to go back on tour again."