WTA: Swiss Timea Bacsinszky must fear for clay court season

Timea Bacsinszky remains true to her injury: The Swiss has suffered another setback on her way back and fears for her clay court season. The French Open semi-finalist from 2015 and 2017 has lost all four matches this year.

Timea Bacsinszky injured her right calf this week while warming up before her first-round match against Christina McHale (USA) in Rabat/Morocco. “I tried to run for a stop ball when I felt a stabbing pain. Since then, I can no longer put a strain on my leg,” the 28-year-old woman from Vaud reported. She didn’t play the game anymore.

Bacsinszky had already had to fit at her home match in Lugano in the Swiss canton of Ticino due to persistent problems with her wrist. She had already ended the past season prematurely in September due to severe arthrosis in her middle finger. “I thought my career was over,” Bacsinszky recently told the viewer.

At first she tried to treat the complaints in the finger conservatively with cortisone injections, among other things. “But as a price for the painkillers I swallowed, I ruined my stomach,” Bacsinszky revealed.

In 2018, the current world ranking-46th, once number nine in the ranking, is still waiting for its first victory. Bacsinszky had failed in St. Petersburg, Indian Wells and Miami respectively at their opening hurdles – and had also lost their singles in April in the Fed Cup duel with host Romania in Cluj.

Bacsinszky, daughter of a dentist and a tennis coach, had just celebrated her greatest successes on clay. Last year, for example, the right-hander from Lausanne narrowly had to admit defeat to the later Paris winner Jelena Ostapenko (Latvia) in the semi-final of the French Open. Two years earlier, she lost to Serena Williams (USA) in a memorable semi-final match.

Belinda Bencic, the second Swiss woman of world-class format, is also currently a problem child. In Lugano, the 21-year-old was unable to compete because of a foot injury, just like Bacsinszky. In mid-April, Bencic stated in an interview that she would undergo threshold therapy.

It is planned that the former seventh in the world ranking before the French Open (from 27 May) will still compete in the preparation tournament in Trnava/Slovakia (from 15 May). Bencic, who is repeatedly struck by injuries, is currently in 72nd place in the WTA ranking.