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Amidst her continued slump in the WTA rankings, Anett Kontaveit recently shocked her fans and the tennis world, saying that she is likely to never completely recover from her back injury.
The former World No. 2 has had a terrible start to her 2023 season as her lower back injury has led to her early exits in all four tournaments that she has participated in so far. At the Adelaide International 1, Kontaveit fell to Qinwen Zheng in three sets in the opening round. The Estonian once again found herself out of the Adelaide International 2 in the first round, courtesy of Paula Badosa.
While she won her first match at the 2023 Australian Open against Julia Grabher, Magda Linette sent her packing in the second round. Kontaveit requested medical timeouts during both of her matches at the WTA 500 Abu Dhabi Open. After defeating Shuai Zhang in the opening match, the 27-year-old failed to complete her second-round clash against Shelby Rogers.
She subsequently withdrew from the Qatar Open, the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, and the ongoing BNP Paribas Open.
In a recent interview, Anett Kontaveit went into detail about her injury and added that the injury was likely to stay forever. However, she also remarked that she could continue to play at the highest level if she was careful.
"My injury specifically involves degenerative changes to the lumbar discs of the spine and irritation of the left thigh tendons due to previous trauma," Kontaveit said. "I'm treating it with special exercises and physiotherapy, with the help of physiotherapists Toms Zvonkovs and Lauri Ott."
"It's something I probably won't be able to get rid of. But it can, hopefully, be controlled well enough for me to continue playing without pain," she added.
Requires very careful monitoring of the exercises: Anett Kontaveit's orthopedic surgeon
Anett Kontaveit's orthopedic surgeon, Mihkel Mardna, has stated that while the injury will stay with the player forever, she can control it with careful monitoring and continue to play tennis.
"It will stay with the athlete for the rest of her career," Mardna said. "It can be controlled by special therapeutic exercises that need to be done on a daily basis like training the core muscles of the body, the abdominal and back muscles. This doesn't rule out the possibility of playing the top sport, but it does require very careful monitoring of the exercises and perhaps adjustments to the training."
The World No. 61 is hoping to return to action at the Billie Jean King Cup in April.
