Konta: I have been battling knee problem all year
British No1 still in pain after early finish to 2019 Australian Open plans up in the air after rehab
Johanna Konta, the British No1, will make a late decision on when to travel to Australia as the bad knee that forced an early end to her season continues to trouble her.
In an echo of Kyle Edmund’s recent struggles with chronic knee pain, Konta admitted this week that she was also dealing with an overuse issue – either tendinitis or one of its close relatives.
Despite rehab and strengthening work since she stepped off the tour in September, the pain has yet to resolve completely, and she is reluctant to commit herself to a build-up schedule ahead of next month’s Australian Open.
“I am looking to be on that plane on the 30th [of December] going to Brisbane,” Konta said. “I have booked that flight. But I’m not giving myself any deadlines. I’m planning to play Brisbane, Adelaide and Melbourne, and I am hopeful that I am going to be ready. But I can only listen to my body.”
The news is unexpected and more than a little worrying. Konta – who will start the new year at No 12 in the world, eight places behind her career peak – had previously made no mention of how much her knee was affecting her last season.
Now she has revealed that the pain started at the very beginning, during her trip to the Brisbane _International last January. She pushed through it, and managed to reach the second week of three of the four grand slams.
But by the US Open – where she made it to the quarter-finals by beating her personal nemesis Karolina Pliskova in three tight sets – the case for some time off was becoming unanswerable.
“Once we got to the grass it got worse and worse,” Konta said. “Then at the US Open it felt significantly worse, so I had to look into how I wanted to keep going. I had more tests done and took the decision to take time out to rehabilitate it, hoping to be back in time for Moscow and Zhuhai [two tournaments played in late October].
“But once we got closer to the deadline, it didn’t seem the right path to take. I was rehabbing until just before Moscow, but then decided to take a holiday, and I’ve been in pre-season since that finished.
“It’s definitely on the way up but it’s still going to take some managing, even into next season. The main thing has been to get it to a stage where I can function at the highest level, and that’s the stage we are getting to now, where we are raising the amount of time on court and slowly feeling like a normal tennis player again. I’m up to two hours a day on court – which is nearly normal – plus all the gym stuff.”
Konta’s admission underlines what a tough competitor she has become, especially against more fancied opposition. It was impressive enough to come out of the year’s final two majors with victories over Pliskova, Sloane Stephens and Petra Kvitova, but to do so while hampered by a chronic injury is even more striking.
Asked for her personal highlights of the year, Konta replied “My match against Karolina [Pliskova] in New York stands out. There were so many good things I did in that match that were pleasing.
“The one which hurt the most and took a few extra days to digest and move forward from was the semi-final of the French Open [against 19-year-old Marketa Vondrousova].
“That was quite a tough match for me to lose and digest.”