By Richard Pagliaro | @Tennis_Now | Friday, October 18, 2024
Photo: Clive Brunskill/Getty
New balls please was once an ATP slogan.
Recently, it was a very scary possibility for Andrey Rublev.
More: Rafael Nadal announces his retirement from tennis
Speaking to the media at the Stockholm Open, Rublev revealed the health scare he suffered following a physical five-set loss to Grigor Dimitrov last month.
In every male athlete’s worst nightmare, Rublev suffered testicular trauma.
Or as Rublev bluntly summed it up: “I almost lost the ball.”
The defending champion from Madrid felt pain in his testicle after the five-set US Open loss.
Fortunately, Rublev went to the hospital for treatment, where he faced a terrifying prospect: Amputation of the testicle.
“Now I feel perfect, everything went well,” Rublev told the media in Stockholm. “I don’t know what to call it cleverly, but I can call it funny.
“I almost lost the ball. I was super lucky because they say you only have five or six hours if the blood stops going there and then it’s amputation. I was lucky. I don’t know why I said, ‘let’s go to the hospital “. just to see why I feel a strange feeling’.
“They checked right in and rushed me in to do the surgery and then they were able to do the surgery in three or four hours after I first felt it. So they were able to do everything well and everything in the end. it’s great.”
World No. 7 Rublev now has the rebound in his stride, but said it was almost a whole new ball game.
The last memory Rublev had before the anesthesia began was signing a release form that allowed doctors to perform a testicular amputation if necessary.
“The last thing before they put me to sleep, I signed the paper saying that they were allowed to cut my ball,” Rublev recalled. “That was the last thing I saw before the operation.”
Thirty-nine-year-old Stan Wawrinka defeated Rublev in the first round of the Stockholm Open today, 7-6, 7-6, to become the oldest semi-finalist in the tournament’s history.
However, Rublev is relieved to be back on the field with his body and mind intact.
