Paula Badosa will not be able to compete as of this Sunday at Roland Garros due to a fractured vertebra, according to what Cadena Ser announced this Thursday and later confirmed by the player herself. The 25-year-old Spanish tennis player sustained the injury while competing in the recent tournament in Rome and will miss the great Frenchman, although the estimated period of loss, from eight to 12 weeks, would also keep her away from Wimbledon, which will begin on the 3rd of July.
Badosa suffered a fall during the match against the Tunisian Ons Jabeur. According to the Ser, the setback did not seem serious and he was even able to play three more games -against Marta Kostyuk and Karolina Muchova, before falling against Jelena Ostapenko-, but the insistence of pain forced him to undergo some tests and the scope of the injury – “stress fracture in the L4 vertebra”, as specified by the aforementioned media – dismisses it outright for the second major of the course.
“When everything seemed to be fine again, bad news again just before the start of a Grand Slam. At the tournament in Rome [donde progresó hasta los cuartos de final] I had a stress fracture in my spine. It has been very hard news after such a difficult start to the year with injuries, ”corroborated the tennis player through her social networks. “It’s a fucked up moment, really. When they gave me the news it was a shock total. Mentally it was very hard, but knowing myself I am quite stubborn and I know that I will do my best to return as soon as possible. Is not easy. I was trying to find my game ”, she transmitted in a statement collected by the EFE agency.
It should be remembered that in January, at the gates of the Australian Open, the Catalan –currently the 29th on the WTA world list– already had to be absent from the first big event due to a last-minute injury to her right thigh. Now, the misfortune is repeating itself and, in addition to depriving him of the two great annual events on European territory, Paris and London, it truncates the evolution of the last dates and will also condition the summer slot, with the landing at the US Open (from 28 August) as a more realistic target.
Technical relay and rebound
This last physical setback is a severe mental blow for the athlete, who after a curvilinear period and without the desired results began to rediscover a good version on the track. “I don’t even win ludo… But I’ll keep fighting”, she resigned herself in September, as she descended in the ranking –after having risen to number two, in April last year– and could not get back on track. Back on the charge, she conceded the stick prior to Australia and then overcame a tricky reattachment; a virus depleted him on the desert tour –absence in Abu Dhabi, and first rounds in Doha and Dubai– and later he ran into high-profile rivals both in North America and in the European phase on land.
“I’m leaving with a lot of desire and motivation,” she said after being dropped by Maria Sakkari in the round of 16 in Madrid. “I come from where I come from, from below, so playing like this adds a lot… This is a process, and for a month I’ve been feeling better; after the bump I’ve had, this is valuable ”, she added in the Caja Mágica. Disconnected since the beginning of March from coach Jorge García, with whom he reached his peak and conquered Indian Wells in 2021, he opted for a young duo on the bench –Eduard Esteve and Pol Toledo, both 28 years old– to recover the effervescence and to recover lost ground.
In an ascending line, he signed the rooms in Charleston and Stuttgart, and both in the Spanish capital and later in Rome he left an optimistic residue for Paris. “I have been going from less to more for several weeks, I am feeling good; I think I’m on the right track ”, he stressed at the Foro Itálico. Now, however, his back is tripping him and will force him to stop for two to three months, compromising the remainder of the campaign. Roland Garros was, without a doubt, his greatest motivation, the tournament he has always dreamed of and the major in which he went the furthest; It happened two years ago, when she fell in the quarterfinals against the Slovenian Tamara Zidansek in her first match at Chatrier. As a junior she celebrated it in 2015, at the age of 17.
“Experience teaches you to assume these moments. Maturity helps you assimilate situations of this type and tells you that you have to get up and find the positive side, and not the negative. The years help me see it that way. The process will be delicate and there are weeks in which I will not be able to do absolutely nothing, but I will do everything on my part, ”he reflected in EFE; “Now I will have time to reconsider, think and motivate myself to return with more enthusiasm and, for example, to know that when the other players are going to have more wear and tear, I will be fresher. I’ll try to get to Wimbledon on time, although it will be difficult due to the deadlines”.
Abruptly removed from the stage, Spanish tennis will have four female representatives at Roland Garros, Cristina Bucsa (67th), Rebeka Masarova (68th), Nuria Párrizas (93rd) and Sara Sorribes (132nd); Aliona Bolsova (131st) could join them, as long as she manages to overcome the qualifying phase that is taking place these days.
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