After her 6-3, 6-2 victory over 17-year-old American Thea Frodin, Elena Rybakina gave an injury update to the press. The two-time major champion, playing a competitive match for the first time since she pulled out of her Cincinnati quarterfinal with Iga Swiatek due to an achilles injury, talked about her difficult moment in Cincinnati and gave a progress report after her opening-round win.
She was asked to talk about the moment she decided to retire against Swiatek down 4-1 in the first set on August 20th.
“I stopped because of the pain,” she said. “First, actually when it happened, I felt the moment, and straightaway I called the physio in Cincinnati. She said the Achilles tendon was not broken, so that was kind of a good thing, but of course I still had the pain, and I said, ‘Let me just try.’
“And then when I went to serve, I realized I cannot push from the leg. So it was impossible to continue.”
Rybakina said she didn’t play for seven full days, which moves the timeline to August 28th – meaning she’s only been practicing for three days.
“From that, we started my recovery,” she said. “We didn’t know if I’m going to be able to play here or not. I’m pretty happy, of course, that I’m playing right now, and we were taking it day by day. I was not playing for the full week, so seven days of no tennis and basically not too much gym I could do movement-wise.”
Rybakina was pleased that she could come away with an easy victory against the young American on the Grandstand. She needed just 74 minutes and saved both break points she faced.
“It’s a great result after 10 days from that kind of injury,” she said, adding: “Right now I feel okay. Of course we’ll see again day by day how I will wake up tomorrow, since it’s the first match and kind of a lot of movement.”
Rybakina, who can assure herself of the No.1 ranking if she reaches the semifinals in New York, will face Jessica Bouzas Maneiro in the second round.
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