Wimbledon news - Johanna Konta may have to play through painful knee injury for rest of career
/dnl.eurosport.com/sd/img/placeholder/eurosport_logo_1x1.png){kind=logo}
Published 24/06/2021 at 07:43 GMT
British number one Johanna Konta thinks she may have to manage a knee injury for the rest of her career. Konta has skipped the traditional Wimbledon warm-up tournaments in a bid to ensure her knee is in the best possible condition for next week. "Will it be part of the rest of my career? Possibly. I do think I definitely have more longer stretches of it being very good and pain-free," Konta said.
Top 10: Serena and Swiatek star in best shots of women's Roland Garros
Johanna Konta says she may have to play through injury for the rest of her career after trying to ignore a knee issue for too long.
The British number one skipped warm-up events Eastbourne and Birmingham this week in an effort to keep herself in top condition for the start of Wimbledon.
Konta has been nursing a tendon problem in her right knee and the 30-year-old explained the constant issue means her schedule has to be carefully managed.
"I think at the beginning I didn't really acknowledge that there was something going on," she said.
"It took way too long on my behalf to address it properly and by that time it was a significant thing.
"Tendon issues, they're not simple, they don't follow any specific blueprint on rest, recovery, rehabilitation and then you're back good to go, it's basically just management.
This has been one of those things that I've had to train through and look to manage. It's something I've had to get used to.
"Will it be part of the rest of my career? Possibly. I do think I definitely have more longer stretches of it being very good and pain-free.
"I wasn't pain-free for the best part of two and a half years, so there are a lot of positive things.
"I do think I'm going to be managing this for quite some time. Hopefully I'll kick it before I stop playing."
/origin-imgresizer.eurosport.com/2021/02/09/2989601-61347748-2560-1440.jpg)
Konta on injury: It was like an out-of-body experience
Konta will have high hopes for Wimbledon next week being a former semi-finalist and bagging her fourth WTA title at the Viking Open in Nottingham earlier this month.
Wimbledon qualifiers are already in full swing and Konta will be the number 28 seed for the tournament.
Konta isn’t sure if she’ll ever be able to throw off the injury and explained sometimes her knee hurts through the entirety of a match.
"It's a managing thing," she added. "I look to manage that I'm putting enough load through it, make sure all the muscles around it are strong enough, make sure I give it every opportunity to enable tendon repair, so I'm lifting very heavy - slow and heavy, that's been the protocol for me with this tendon issue.
Sometimes it is sore when I play matches, sometimes it isn't. It depends where it is, how acute it is at the time.
"I don't really look to expend any energy on fretting about it or worrying about it. I know I'm doing the work, I know I'm doing the best that I can.
/origin-imgresizer.eurosport.com/2021/06/23/3159601-64747753-2560-1440.jpg)
'Winning Wimbledon is like climbing Everest' - Djokovic
"I'm giving myself every chance to be at my best when I step out onto the court.
"Even if I'm not, even if I'm short of that, or even if I'm there, then I just try to do my best to manage what I have on the day to be able to play the best that I can."
Scan me
Related Topics
Share this article
Advertisement
Advertisement