Sports News | Karman Ready for Battle She Loves to Have After Combating Injuries, Fears, Doubts
Get latest articles and stories on Sports at LatestLY. The fear that injuries will consume her tennis career is not there anymore, and the nights of crying are also over for Karman Kaur Thandi.
New Delhi, Jan 16 (PTI) The fear that injuries will consume her tennis career is not there anymore, and the nights of crying are also over for Karman Kaur Thandi.
Competing against Hungary's Panna Udvardy in the ITF W50 tournament here, the Delhi player unleashed her solid ground strokes in a fearless display on her comeback. The sharpness and the control was obviously missing but not the wide grin.
She flashed a huge smile after the match which she lost 4-6 1-6 to Udvardy, who featured in top-100 some time back.
After all, Karman had stepped on the the court for a match after 16 long months and completing the contest was also a kind of victory. Especially when, not long back she feared that she will not be able to lift a tennis racquet.
She hugged her family members after getting a high-five from her coach Aditya Sachdeva, who is fully sponsored by RoundGlass and trains at its academy in Chandigarh.
There was relief in the air.
Karman had broken into top-200 in 2018, but injuries scuttled her progress and made it a stop-start career for the tall Delhi player.
"I remember there were days when I was crying almost every night for months and months. It doesn't matter how strong you want to be but it does hit you at some point that I want to be out there and play," Karman told PTI in an interaction, sharing the tough times she endured.
"The pain was such that I had those thoughts if I'll be able to lift the racket again or play again.
"It was definitely very tough, the year-and-a-half until I stepped on the court and started playing again."
Karman went for her strokes, going for the kill against Udvardy. She did not care if she would lose because of the unforced errors.
"I don't really care about the result right now. I'm very happy that I could stay on the court and complete a full match. And she is relieved that there was nothing amiss in her game.
"I'm just really happy to be there, to be on the court, be it for practice, be it for matches. Matches are like a bonus right now, everything I'm doing it's just that my body feels great and I'm able to play, that's all what matters to me.
"My feeling is pretty good in terms of body and in terms of my readiness I did not feel too off on the court. I did not feel like you know something's really off," she said.
And she defended her aggressive tactics, saying that's her style.
"I have never played slow tennis, so there was nothing like too hard but I know the feeling of when I'm playing, this is the way I play. That's the pace you have to play at that level.
"The girl I was playing, if I were slower, then she would have eaten me. That's my weapon, strong forehands and serves and a solid backhand. I just need to get sharper with it and that comes with matches. I'm pretty happy the way I started this match, no expectations."
It is not the first time in Indian tennis that talented players struggled with injuries. Most recent examples are Yuki Bhambri and Prajnesh Gunneswaran, whose careers were also hampered by injuries.
Yuki had it in him to be in top-50 but injuries forced him to switch to doubles. Prajnesh also lost five crucial years due to stress fractures in his knees.
Many felt that probably their training methods were faulty or perhaps they overtrained.
Karman, though, is pretty clear. She is not going to blame herself or anyone for injuries.
"It was not expected that this is going to put me off court for that long. Everybody has a question paper this was mine and then I'm glad I answered it now and I'm out of it.
"We're not sure because these things are not in control or planned. Nadal has the best things in world. He still is injured. If you ask him what is the reason, he probably doesn't know why. He has the best team.
"You can't blame your training, your physio or yourself for it. It just happens. So it's the same way. I don't think there is a big reason for it. Tennis is like that. You can go anywhere you want. Anything can happen."
While tennis was always on her mind, the 26-year-old utilised the time off the sport to complete her graduation and also got married to Gurjant Singh, who was part of India's bronze medal winning hockey team at Paris Olympics.
"I read a lot of books, I also gave my exams during this period and got done with graduation."
She had gone to Paris to watch Gurjant play at the biggest stage. She had met Gurjant at a physio's clinic and they began talking regularly after that.
"I watched it from the quarterfinals itself, I surprised him after, I think, they won the quarterfinals. After they won the quarterfinals I booked my ticket I told my team like you know guys this is once in a lifetime I want to be there with him for this and it was really really special."
While their respective games are keeping them part, Karman and Gurjant have made peace with the fact that it has to be like this for some time.
"He is very mature as a player himself on the field. He understands me as a player and me as a girl as well. What kind of person I am. Just to be patient because I was doing whatever I could do.
"He was just motivating me like everybody else that this is part of an athlete's life and you've been through tough times, but there's going to be sunshine at the end of this.
"We accept it and we like doing what we are. At least, you know, we are both supportive of each other, of chasing our goals and passions and together we build a good life for ourselves."
Karman's immediate target is to compete full season without a glitch and think about bigger things later.
"It's been five years since I've not had a proper season. And the injuries were setbacks. It was 2 months out, 3 months out, 9 months out. A year and a half out now. This is the maximum I've been out.
"And from there, we can talk about Grand Slams and all this. It's a process."
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)