Putintseva about how she defeated Schwiatek at Wimbledon with a knee injury: I thought: damn, even if I don’t play anything else after this match, but I’ll beat her today
3.01.2025
Yulia Putintseva told how she beat Iga Shventek at Wimbledon with an injury. She defeated the Polish player in the third round – 3:6, 6:1, 6:2.
– During the grass season, my knee hurt very badly. Everything happened so suddenly. I remember I beat Sinyakova. . . When I get up from the bench, I do a mini-acceleration, and in the second set I stood up like: damn, my knee hurts, it’s probably pinched something, some muscle. But I ran and ran, it seemed like the game was normal, tolerable.
I finish the match, three sets, and I also had a pair of three sets that day, which I lost. When I was playing, I thought: my knee hurts, I need to take care of myself. The third set I ran, but not the way I usually run.
And then, the next day I wake up and realize that everything seems to be blocked in my knee: I just can’t move it. I’m like: what nonsense, I need to stretch. I start to stretch, but I can’t stretch. I just can’t bend it or straighten it.
I think: okay, I just got up, don’t panic, maybe it’ll clear up now. . . Nothing diverges. For the first time, probably in six months of work, I write to Matteo [Donati, coach]: I need to see a physio urgently. Him: what is it? Me: I don’t know yet, but my knee hurts. It really hurts to walk. He was like, okay, let`s go to the physio.
In short, I`m going to Wimbledon, going to the physio. By the way, I was lucky, there was a good girl there, Iva, German, good physio. She begins to tell me that my muscle is very clogged, and, most likely, it is pinching something, which is causing some kind of pain. I’m like, okay, let’s massage. I`ve been lying on this physio table for an hour, they massage me with everything, until I cry.
I get up, she wrapped something up for me and said: go, try, train. I was also so embarrassed: I had time, and Tsitsipas was training there with my dad. And they were training so actively, I already have time, five minutes, and they are still training. I think: okay, it`s time to drive them away. In short, I drive them off the court, go out myself, take five shots from the baseline and understand that I simply cannot move: neither to the right, nor to the left - nowhere. And for the first time in six months I say: Mateo, today we are not training.
And then I started to panic about what might be wrong with my knee. And so on and so forth. . . But, honestly, I didn’t even know that I would go out to play this match with Iga Swiatek, because that day I was in such crazy pain. The next day I woke up and everything hurt. I took some painkillers and went to play.
In the first set, I checked which movements hurt and which did not hurt. And then I play and think: damn, even after this match I won’t play anything else, but I’ll beat her today.
– Can’t you tune in like this more often?
– Damn, sometimes I have this, and Matteo tells me about it too. Sometimes, he says, you get up and say: today I won’t lose to this bitch at all (laughs). She annoys me. I`m really winning. He says: why can’t you think like that every match? I’m like: I don’t know, maybe my mood just passes by in passing. Well, I don’t know.
After that I started having problems with my knee. The MRI showed as many as five problems, but minimal ones, which grew into a maximum problem. And then I didn’t play for three weeks after that. . .
Read all sport news
