The Australian Open’s walking wounded are hopeful of making it through the year’s first grand slam starting tomorrow after a raft of early-season injuries.
Roger Federer said he was back to full training after back spasms forced him out of the Qatar Open, while Serena Williams had her fingers crossed after spraining her ankle this month in Brisbane.
Williams said she had undergone “constant icing” and would play with her ankles strapped although she had refused treatment in an oxygen chamber be-cause she gets claustrophobic.
“Well, I really tested my moving today for the first time so I feel a lot better with it. I’ll kind of know more tomorrow, you know, because today is the first day I really like pushed it,” Williams said yesterday.
“I’ve been taking it easy for a long time now. But overall I feel really good... I’m just taking it one match at a time.
“I hope I get to play seven of them and come out on top in all seven.”
Defending champion Kim Clij-sters was confident she would suffer no more ill-effects after she had to pull out of the Brisbane tournament with hip spasms.
“I’m doing good. I think what happened in Brisbane was something that I knew would only need a few days to get better, and it did,” said the Belgian.
“I had my scan just to make sure the day after, but that showed no problems. So I was relieved. Yeah, came to Melbourne and started hitting when I got here.”
Women’s number one Caroline Wozniacki was also optimistic about her left wrist after feeling sharp pain during last week’s loss to Agnieszka Radwanska at the Sydney International.
“Obviously it’s a bit scary when you’re out there. You don’t know. But, I mean, everything turned out to be okay,” she insisted.
“You know, I had some pain, but it’s going away. I’m confident that it will be 100 per cent ready.”
And men’s champion Novak Djokovic said he was clear of the shoulder and back problems which overshadowed the end of his superb 2011.
“For right now I don’t feel any struggles and any pain,” Djokovic said.
Women’s number 10 Andrea Petkovic has already pulled out of the Open with a stress fracture in her lower back, while former champion Venus Williams is out with auto-immune disease Sjog-ren’s syndrome.
Men’s second seed Rafael Nadal has complained of shoulder problems and also mental fatigue at the start of the year, and says he intends to take a month off after the season’s first grand slam.
Federer, ranked third, said he needed to do exercises during his long flight from Doha to make sure the back problem did not flare up again and rule him out of his 49th consecutive grand slam.
“I tried to sleep as much as I could, then sort of got up and did some exercise. Actually, made it all the way through the flight,” Federer said.