Milos Raonic revealed that he nearly gave up on his professional tennis career when he was sidelined for nearly two years with an achilles injury.
Raonic made a sensational return to tennis with a straight-sets first-round victory against Miomir Kecmanovic at the 2023 Libema Open. The Canadian cruised to victory and defeated his Serbian opponent by showing no signs of rustiness with a 6-3, 6-4 win in s-Hertogenbosch.
It was a proud moment for the 32-year-old, who played his previous tennis match in July 2021. However, when reflecting on the win in his post-match press conference, the 2016 Wimbledon finalist explained how close he was to retiring following a severe achilles injury in 2021.
“Many times I didn’t even want to bother trying, because I was so far away from it. There were moments when I said, ‘I’m done’. At the end of 2021, I had no intention to play again, [I thought] ‘I’m going to figure out my life’, shortly after I got married."
As his off-court spell extended, Raonic said he had an awakening to value other things in his life other than tennis. The 32-year-old believes his value of other things helped his tennis to improve and reignited his enjoyment of the game again.
“One thing I did learn, which is a nice lesson, is life will be OK after tennis, which is kind of a fear because you put so much time into one thing and a singular skill. You don’t ever put the time into it thinking you want to dedicate your whole life to it… It just becomes your life. Then trying to figure out what you want to dedicate your life to after tennis, that’s kind of a hard thing… I got on OK with that.
“Once I started feeling a little bit better, I wanted to play tennis just to stay in shape. I started playing golf five hours a day. It really was not for me. I still enjoy it and I love it, but I’m not very good at not being good at something, and accepting that, so I’m happy to be on court again.”
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