¶ The First Major Injury
You mentioned that that was a big year because of the comeback and that was your third knee surgery at that point , and how serious . I guess any surgery is serious , but how serious had the first two been prior to the third ? You know , when you were told that you'd never play professional tennis again .
Well , the first one was that 99 match . That was my first one where I was , like I said , quarterfinal S said quarter final sampras playing it was a beautiful day , not a cloud in the sky , just playing great tennis won the first set , six , three , it was one .
All had break point , um , and had hit a backhand like I've done two thousand times off the back foot , like I've done in my career , and felt something , but didn't really know what had happened until break point .
He'd served the big serve and I went to return and lunge and I'm like , oh , that felt something a little weird and ended up holding serve and I called the trainer and the trainer came . I was like , look , I don't know , I've done something , I've , you know I felt something . But , um , you guys like , get lie down your back .
And he was just stretching around trying to work out what was going on and he goes , okay , stand up again . And what had happened was when I went to stand up , I had torn my meniscus and when he was checking my leg , what was going on ? That piece that I had torn off had folded into my joint .
So every time I'd step on it would just be the most excruciating pain . So I literally I couldn't put any weight on my left leg . I ended up shaking hands within 30 seconds .
I knew I couldn't even oh , literally from when the trainer yeah , and I just I couldn't , you know , because of that , meniscus had folded into my joint and I ended up being just helped off the court and I carried my bag and I just remember , in the locker room I was on the massage table and it was a small locker room back then and Pete was next to me
getting stretched and I just remember I was just crying . I started crying , you know , and um , also crying because I didn't know what I have done , crying because just the , the , what's the situation and and the opportunity I had lost , you know being , you know being up a set with with Sampras , you know , and just playing great tennis and feeling good
¶ Setbacks & Pushing Through Pain
. So that was number one . But a meniscus tear is a very quick repair . I was back on the court , I had my surgery , I walked out , you know you stand up right after the surgery just to make sure everything's good and oh yeah , so I ended up .
How quick did you get that surgery after that day ? I was ?
on the court , probably two weeks later , slowly hitting you know it's literally that quick yeah , but not playing a tournament two weeks later . But but two weeks later slowly hitting and doing rehab , um . And then everything was fine until um at the end of 2000 where I had a great year and I could have .
I was close to finishing the top 10 and I remember I had just lost in the final of paris indoors and to marat stuff in seven , six and the fifth and and I had one torn to go to swedish swedish indoors event and I thought if I did well , I had , I would make the top eight , you know event in the ATP champions .
And then the night before the match I was with my coach then , peter McNamara , and we ended up going to a restaurant and I went to run across the road after that and I almost collapsed . Something and something happened and I woke up from a warm-up and I couldn't .
I tried warming up my match and there was just this pain in my left knee and I had done it again . Same issue , same issue . So I come back and I was on the court eight days later . Ten days later I was on the court again and I played a tournament a month and a half later after the show had opened .
It was a Memphis indoors , a big indoor tournament . I was seeded number two , sanford's number one , and I win that tournament . But I didn't realize I'd come back to Atlanta , I had done damage and then I ended up playing in Miami tournament . I had beaten Chang and then I woke up and my knee's like a balloon and then I ran a 16 .
I play Federer and then I'm like God , I don't know , I know something's wrong , but I've got to play . So I had put a sleeve over my knee so no one would see that it was like a balloon and I lost to him in three and had an MRI that night . And then the doctor was the Miami Heat orthopedic surgeon
¶ Microfracture Surgery & Facing Retirement
from the Miami Heat doctor , the hospital team , and he goes you've got to come in 6 am , you need surgery . You know you've got to come in 6 am , we've got to . You've you need surgery . You know , um , you mean you've done your meniscus again . So I'd woken up from the surgery .
And then when I woke up he goes look , once we got in there , it wasn't as simple as that , I actually ended up having a microfracture surgery . So microfracture surgeries is when the bone above your you know leg has , um , you have cartilage around your bone but that had worn off , so it's bone on bone , um .
So they had to drill a hole in the bone and then that hole , um it's you have to be non-weight bearing .
That's why I was in a wheelchair for three months and crutches , and what has to happen is what's supposed to happen is that hole has to bleed and that blood ends up hardening up , which hopefully turns into like a cartilage , like protection around the joint . So I was one of the um .
They had six surgeons in there because they haven't had done this surgery a lot . You know , only handful of surgeries have been done in the past like this um and and another doctor said like he'll never play professional tennis again , and then my doctor , what point did you hear those words ?
uh , when I woke up , okay , when I woke up , but the doctor , he was pretty good , pretty positive . He goes look , don't worry about what they say , I believe we've , you know , focus on our rehab , um ,
¶ Rehab, Depression & Rediscovering Strength
and let's just see how it goes . So I ended up doing rehab with the miami basketball team . With him for months , um , I was living in miami and I was getting synthetic cartilage injections in my knee , um as well .
Um , and yeah , it was at the time where I was incredibly depressed because I was in a wheelchair , um , and I was that kid where you can't sit still . I would be on a jet ski , I'd ride motorbikes , I was a little bit of an adrenaline junkie , snowboarded .
I just couldn't sit still and just the fact of being on my wheelchair would just , mentally , was getting to me . So one day I remember waking up and my dad would end up getting trying me to do things .
He got a Tai Chi master to come in I'll do Tai Chi for my mind , like in the wheelchair , and stuff like that and I'd woken up and he'd sawn off the armrest of the wheelchair and he goes okay , we're going on the court and we're going to start hitting balls . So I remember I ended up training and was hitting balls .
I could hit forehand , so I ended up just doing training while I was in the wheelchair .
I mean , is that beneficial for you ? Because I would imagine hitting a forehand from a wheelchair is materially different from hitting it A hundred percent .
but my dad did that for my mind to keep me just not thinking about the wheelchair and just thinking about getting stronger and getting better . So everything he did , I was doing Tai Chi , I was doing meditation . You know someone , I was doing , you know rehab every day .
I had someone come to my house every single day and then , when I got out of the wheelchair , I had a person come to my house and we did 30 minutes of yoga , 30 minutes of Pilates and he'd massage me for an hour every day . I did everything I possibly could to get myself back on the court .
And how did you maintain motivation , or find motivation and focus ? Because even though you've heard from the first doctor that you won't play professional tennis again , the next guy's saying look , don't worry , we're gonna focus on rehab .
But I would imagine inside you think he's probably saying that to make me feel better , you know honestly , the best thing is hearing doctors tell me that I'll never play professional tennis again .
I'm that guy that you tell me I can't do something . I will . That's how it was as a kid , you know . They said you , you as a kid , you're not going to make it and and and I'm that person .
The best thing you can do for me is tell me that I can't do something , that if you want to help me , that's kind of how , um , that's what I wanted to hear , um , and that's something that drove me every day , you know , and the fact also , too , is having people around me very small circle .
But also this has happened at the same time I had friends that disappeared . I had friends that I thought were super close , that were . I had this guy who was next door , literally my next door neighbor , that I thought was one of my closest friends . He
¶ The Comeback
did not come to my house once in those six months because he thought you might not be the famous market . Well , because my ranking dropped because I wasn't playing tennis , I wasn't traveling , you know , I wasn't getting him tickets to watch tournaments , matches . That happened as well and that was the best thing . Could have happened to me as well .
I had people that I knew , my friends , who you know one of my closest friends now who would come to my house five , six days a week or ended up bringing friends and I'd play doubles on the court in my wheelchair , you know , and I realized who were , who became family to me , who really , you know , loved me and were my friends , and a lot of things that
hurt me during those times , that were tough for me but ended up being a blessing , you know . And so that's another thing as well .
How long did it take until you did go on court again professionally ?
Nine months later , I was on the court playing my first tournament .
Nine and a half months later , how did you feel in that first match ?
It made it amazing . You know , first match made amazing . You know , the first match I won .
Second match I lost in the second round , but just I just there was no , there was no fear that , oh , I'm gonna step on my leg .
Funny , no no , that was for the longest time after that , but but no , no , when I was on the court , I'm I'm that person that , to be honest , I'm fearless , like I like I did a lot of stupid stuff with motorcycles and fast guys , where it's you know , I was lucky not to kill myself . To be honest with you , I just had no fear .
I had that thing where you got to a point and you knew you had to slow down or something , and it was a wall where I just wanted to go faster . That's how I was with my life , to be honest with you , with everything I did , and I just didn't know .
I knew when I'm on the court and I promised myself that I was not going to rush from rehab because I had done that before . So I knew that once I got on the court , I was strong . Trust me , trust my body . You're ready , you've done the right thing , just go . And that's where I was .