(AP Photo)
The news already came yesterday, David will skip the Masters event at Rome next week in order to continue treatment for the lingering hip injury that forced him to withdraw from the Barcelona tournament on Thursday. Right now, it looks like he might be able to play Estoril. But although some of the Argentine press sites already claim this to be the case, so far there hasn't been any official confirmation from David or his camp. He was scheduled to undergo further tests and examinations yesterday.
According to an article from La Nacion (from which the quotes have also been taken), David first experienced problems with his right hip during the Davis Cup tie against Sweden, last year. Since then, they have troubled him "intermittently" and they apparently returned prior to the Masters at Monte Carlo, which was when his coach Luis Lobo talked publicly about David's hip problems for the first time. At Monte Carlo, David played three long and tough three-set matches, which obviously didn't do his hip any good. But apparently, it was towards the end of his shortest match in a while, the victory over Almagro, that his hip began to cause him more serious trouble.
David's physician Dr. Ruiz-Cotorro explains:
"It's a problem he has noticed particularly during rhythm changes. The hip joint is put under more and more strain as the match goes on, and usually, cooling down again, he feels pain. At the end of the second set the pain was getting worse. David has been suffering from an inflammation of the right hip for a couple of weeks and was feeling pain when he played, which was aggravated by the matches. It seems that this is a case of overstraining, but this type of injury can be made worse if he continues playing."
In a interview with Argentine Radio Uno, David himself had the following to say:
"The recommended way of doing this is to rest and see how things develop. This is something I've had for some time, and there have been weeks when it was okay and others when it was not so okay. We'll see what happens with the examinations. But right now, I'm getting conservative treatment with anti-inflammatory drugs and rehabilitation. It's an injury that many players suffer and it's not an easy one. I'm not off the court completely but I feel uncomfortable when I play and the exertion makes me notice it even more. But: I don't want surgery. At this point, I care more about restoring my health than about being the #10 or #15 in the world, the ranking is the least of my concerns."
However, maybe the best sign that this might only be a short pause (and that David's hip will hopefully be okay again, soon) is that despite the most tempting of incentives, i.e. the Rally Argentina currently taking place near Cordoba, David will not fly back home. "I would've liked to travel to Cordoba to see the Rally, but it's necessary to make the recovery in Europe."
3 comments:
Thanks for the update, Julia. Here's hoping David is well enough to play in Estoril. But I'm glad he's looking to getting healthy rather than worry about his ranking; and it's good he's staying in Europe and focusing on his fitness.
An excellent and thorough update. Thank you, Julia. :)
De nada. :)
I think the good news is that he's staying in Europe. If the injury was bad enough to require a longer pause, he'd already be back home by now. That's the good thing about it.
What's not so good is that according to that article, David has been having those problems for a year now. And while I do remember him saying that he finished that DC tie against Sweden "on one leg", there was not a word about any hip problems until Luis Lobo first talked about them just before Monte Carlo.
And on Thursday, even directly before withdrawing, David didn't say anything about having physical problems after the Almagro match. In fact, I was just about to post some quotes from his post-match press conference about how great he was feeling and how he was planning to play against Nadal when the news came of his withdrawal. - Which for me raises the question of how much to believe of what David or people from his camp say.
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