The Spanish Pablo Carreño, who has been out of the ATP circuit for a year and a half due to an elbow injurywill be in Paris 2024 thanks to protected rankingwhere he knows that repeating a medal is complicated, but where he wants to “fight again face to face against everyone.”
Olympic bronze at the Tokyo 2020 Gameswinner of seven ATP titles, US Open semi-finalist in 2017 and 2020 and former number 10 in the rankingCarreño is beginning to regain his sensations and will compete in the Perugia Challenger, organized by MEF Tennis Events, with Paris in the lead.
“I am very excited to go to the Games, especially after the last time. After winning the bronze medal in Tokyo, being in Paris was the goal to draw strength and continue working during the year. There is little left, but my idea is to arrive ready to try, I know that it is difficult to fight for medals again, to be competing at a high level again and to see myself face to face with all the players”he commented in an interview with the Italian tournament.
A tournament that brings back good memories, since he already won it in 2015.
“It’s been many years now, but the memory is beautiful because it was a special tournament. I took the victory, my father was there. I’m here, although the circumstances are not ideal after such a long injury, to get back into the rhythm of competition. Of all the people there, I was especially excited to be here,” said.
“It has been a very important injury, a lot of time out. There have been moments when I didn’t know if I was going to compete at my level again and that is very hard.”he added.
just a few days ago He returned to the ATP circuit to compete at Roland Garroswhere, despite the good feelings, he fell in the first round.
“At Roland Garros I played my first tournament in a long time, we knew it was going to be complicated but the feeling in my elbow was good. I also played doubles to maintain this idea of playing, of picking up the pace and losing the fear of letting go of my arm”he pointed out.
The Asturian revealed that The injury affected him mentally and it was the worst moment of his career: “It seemed that sometimes I recovered well, but when I forced it, the discomfort returned and that is mentally hard to accept. Seeing yourself close to competing and then stopping again was the most complicated thing in my career.“.
“I still don’t want to declare victory, I don’t want to say that I’m at 100% because this is a long process. I need to gain confidence, play matches, lose fear. What I really want is to return to the ATP,” he pointed.
