American teenager CiCi Bellis was inside the Top 50 at the end of 2017 and considered by many to be one of the more promising young players in the game.
But since then the Northern California native has been besieged by injuries, many of which she chronicles in a recent post on the Behind the Racquet Instagram feed.
“During a tournament in Mexico two years ago, after playing against this big hitter, both my arms were sore for about four days. I thought it was normal and something I had to deal with. Everyone just diagnosed it as tendonitis. After getting through the clay and grass with pain doctors prescribed anti-inflammatories, which did help. I went off them, just before Asia, when I thought I was on these pills for too long. I took about 2-3 weeks off during preseason and then did some strengthening. I was at my career high ranking and wanted to continue the momentum. I went into 2017 playing Doha and Dubai. During Dubai I literally felt my elbow crack. It was now Indian Wells and the discomfort in my wrist and elbow was at an all time high. I was fed up with unqualified doctors and went to the Mayo Clinic to get the highest quality MRI. This doctor found three tears in my wrist and that one of the bones in my wrist was too long which caused the tears and impaction. The first surgery ended up solely repairing the tears, as he did not see the original impaction anymore. Shortly after healing my elbow started killing. A doctor examined it and found that two bone spurs hit each other every time I straightened my elbow, and the main one was fractured. This was the crack I felt in Dubai. The bone needed to be shaven down. It was a simple surgery and I got back to playing, but it wasn’t over. Pain returned in my wrist from ‘one of the worst impactions ever’. The doctor apologized for not doing the surgery earlier but now it was a must. They basically cut my bone in half, shortened it, and then put a plate in. This took some real time before I started hitting, but once I got to the baseline something was wrong. I received this swelling on my arm every time I played. We figured out the plate in my arm was too big, causing inflammation and aggravation. I got the plate out last Monday and that’s where I am now. The hardest things have been hitting and getting close to normality and then just being totally set back. There is no way I can do this anymore, but tennis is everything to me. I wouldn’t have done this if I didn’t love this sport.”
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Since beginning 2017 with pain in her elbow and wrist that only got worse—a doctor at the Mayo Clinic later found three tears in her wrist and discovered that one of the bones in her right wrist was too long. Bellis also would later learn that she had two bone spurs in her right elbow that were impacting one another every time she straightened her arm. She has had multiple surgeries to repair right arm, and even needed a plate inserted after a bone-shortening surgery.
“The hardest things have been hitting and getting close to normality and then just being totally set back,” she wrote. “There is no way I can do this anymore, but tennis is everything to me. I wouldn’t have done this if I didn’t love this sport.”
Former World No.35 Bellis has not played since last year’s Miami Open.
“I got the plate out last Monday and that’s where I am now,” she wrote.
Bellis will turn 20 on April 8.