Aryna Sabalenka reached the 2024 Italian Open final, but she considered never playing at the event because of an injury.
Seeing a player make the final of an event, you are obviously impressed with their level of performance. Sabalenka played amazing tennis this week in Rome to find herself in the final once more, but it almost never happened.
The Belarusian dealt with an injury after her tremendous Madrid Open run, which concluded with a loss in the final. There was a lot of consideration ahead of this WTA 1000 event, whether to play or not to play, but she ended up playing, and it didn't end up being the wrong decision.
"I was considering retiring from the tournament. Lucky me, I had an extra day. I was doing a lot of recovery. I'm still doing lots of exercise, lots of treatments, always taking care of my lower back."
"It's getting better. So I guess we're on the right way. I don't know. I'm doing everything myself to recover as fast as I can and to be ready for the Paris. Right now I'm feeling great."
Back issues are obviously very complicated because they tend to linger. Sometimes, athletes can feel fine as Sabalenka is feeling right now, but then all of a sudden, one move can erase all of the progress.
The hope is that it doesn't impact her participation in Paris, and that's how she'll approach the final match in Rome. Everything is second to Roland Garros.
"I'm not in pain during the matches. Of course, if something going to happen in the match, I'm going to pull out because Paris is around the corner. Hopefully it's not going to happen. I feel like it's not going to happen. So just stay positive."
"Yeah, was crazy injury. I thought, Okay, I'm done in Rome. But we did a great treatment, great physios. I really appreciate that I really appreciate the physio that they helped me to stay alive and to actually fix the problem."
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