American tennis player Sloane Stephens revealed that she’s been dealing with ongoing wrist problems but she is still slated to compete at this week’s BNP Paribas Open 2014 Indian Wells, a WTA Premier-level event that will run for almost two weeks. Stephens is aiming to bounce back from consecutive first round losses at Premier events in Doha and Dubai last month.
Stephens said in an interview with USA Today that her wrist injury started with a ligament problem that affected her play at the Hopman Cup. She added that the exact problem was not determined even though five specialists have examined her wrist.
“I have like an old person’s wrist that kinda just messes up when it wants to and gives me some trouble,” she said. “I don’t even know what the actual diagnosis is.”
Stephens seemed to bring out the best tennis in Grand Slam events, a streak that continued in last January’s Australian Open where she reached the fourth round.
“Some things I let slip away,” she said. “I’m just trying to grab it by the horns when it’s there.”
The American said that she’s still young and learning a lot from her current coach – Paul Annacone, who was the former coach of Pete Sampras and Roger Federer.
“I think people forget that there’s a normal life that you have to live outside of being on the tennis court all the time,” she said. “I’m a regular 20-year old girl. I sometimes need to, like, talk to Paul about my boy problems or I need to talk to Andrew (hitting partner) about how stupid my best friend is.”
The world number 18 admitted that it’s been a struggle to deal with overwhelming media attention and criticisms.
“There’s going to be a lot of things that happen throughout the year and some things are super frustrating that I don’t want to deal with half the time,” she said. “But at the end of the day you have to be patient, otherwise things will just not happen.”
