Written by Richard Pagliaro | @Itenisi_Manje | Friday, October 18, 2024
Photo credit: Clive Brunskill/Getty
New balls were once the slogan of the ATP.
Recently, it was a very scary opportunity Andrei Rublev.
More: Rafael Nadal Announces Retirement From Tennis
Speaking to the media at the Stockholm Open, Rublev shared the fear for his life after his 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 my ball.”
The reigning Madrid champion felt pain in his testicles following a five-set loss at the US Open.
Fortunately, Rublev went to the hospital for treatment where he faced a terrifying prospect: a testicle amputation.
“Now I feel complete, everything went well,” said Rublev to the media in Stockholm. “I don’t know how to call it smart but I can call it funny.
“I almost lost the ball, I was very lucky because they say you only have five or six hours when the blood stops going there and it is cut off. I was lucky. I don’t know why I said let’s go to the hospital. It’s just to check why I feel a strange feeling’.
“They looked at me right away and they treated me as an emergency to operate, and they were able to operate on me three or four hours after the first sensation I felt. So they were able to do everything good and in the end everything is good. good.”
World No. 7 Rublev is now back in his step, but shared that it is almost a new football game.
The last memory Rublev had before the anesthesia kicked in was signing a release form allowing doctors to remove the testicle if needed.
“For the last time before they put me to sleep, I signed a paper saying that they were allowed to cut my ball,” Rublev recalled. “That was the last thing I saw before the operation.”
39-year-old Stan Wawrinka beat top seed Rublev coming out of the Stockholm Open today, 7-6, 7-6, to become the oldest semi-finalist in the tournament’s history.
Still, Rublev is relieved to be back on the court in good health.
