Saturday, July 26, 2008

Safina to play in Los Angeles final

I expected top seed Jelena Jankovic's knee injury to prevent her from winning the East West Bank Classic, or perhaps from even getting to the final. I was right. This is not to say that a healthy Jankovic would have definitely defeated 4th seed Dinara Safina--only that there would have been an even playing field, so to speak. Jankovic's doctors told her to take six weeks off; she took ten days. When she felt no pain, she decided--against all wisdom--to go ahead and play.

Last year, we went through Jankovic's over-scheduling herself and wearing herself out. This year, we are going through the consequences of that. She is playing fewer tournaments, but she is not heeding medical advice. I am a really big Jankovic fan, and I am angry because I think she has let her fans down. If she had skipped the U.S. Open Series, her ranking would have gone down, and she would not have been that well-prepared for the U.S. Open, but she would probably be healthy. Now she may have really wrecked her knee, and who knows what the consequences will be?

Fortunately, I am also a Safina fan, and I am very pleased to see her go to the Los Angeles final, if JJ cannot. To complicate matters more, I am also a fan of Flavia Pennetta's. Obviously, Safina is favored to win, but if Pennetta keeps her head together, it could be a very good final.

Safina def. Jankovic, 7-6, 6-3

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Having torn my meniscus last year, I'm not quite sure that jankovic has torn hers, however I do think she has a tear in her meniscus. The reason I think this is because I needed surgery, and was wheel-chair bound for 2 weeks, before needed crutches for the next 2 months. Having watched the match, she seemed to be moving relatively well, so I don't think playing would have done a lot more damage to her knee.
Personally, I am not the biggest fan of hers, but I thought this might help you rest a little easier knowing her knee should be ok even though it would have been better if she didn't play :)

Anonymous said...

I'm a huge Jelena fan, too, but I'm not angry at her letting me down, she doesn't owe me anything. I'm angry at her for letting herself down by refusing to take care of her body.

I was a very serious athlete and I knew people who competed on meniscus tears; none of them did permanent damage to their knees but many incurred additional injuries trying to compensate for the knee. And all of them ended up having the surgery eventually.

Diane said...

The doctors say she has a meniscus tear, David. And if they were wrong about the six weeks, that's good--in a perverse way--but it doesn't solve the major problem: that she keeps getting injured and ignoring medical advice.

And I am concerned about exactly what Carrie says--that compensatory injuries will follow.

After I wrote that, Carrie, I thought "come on, what does it have to do with me?--JJ's the one who is being hurt." So perhaps my anger has to do with her irresponsibility toward herself. But I wouldn't be honest if I said that's all it is--I do feel that those of us who are such big fans want our player to be healthy enough to do what we know she can do. It's very frustrating.

Anonymous said...

Exactly, if the doctors say she has a meniscus tear then i assume i am right, in that it would most likely just be a tear in a certain part of the meniscus, where as I ruptured mine.

I am currently studying physiotherapy and to my knowledge 4-6 weeks is the recovery time for a meniscus tear, so essentially she could have done more damage within her quad or hip as there would have been a lot more pressure put on them while moving around the tennis court. More damage to her knee is possible, but not likely to be drastic.

But don't quote me on that, I'm not 100% sure...