In 2021, Tennis Acumen interviewed American Evan King at the Champaign Challenger tournament. Here is a part of that conversation:
Tennis Acumen: We’re talking about aches, pains and injuries, Evan.
You were not 100% physically. You're up 5-1 in the second set tiebreaker and it was painful to watch. Your mind is saying: “I've got this.” and your body is just saying: “Please, no.” You managed to win that set.
Evan King: Yes, now that was funny too, At the beginning of the third set, I was thinking OK, I've got some momentum. That's good. And no, that went away pretty quickly. I set foot on the court. I knew what I had in the tank. Go out there, compete. I saved a match point or two, which was good. I'm excited about that. But then I just did not have enough to get through it. Yeah, I'm still a little bit rattled from the match because obviously when you are a competitor, you go out there, you want to win. I wish I would've won, right?
Tennis Acumen: So how often are guys playing hurt?
Evan King: Hurt…. Hurt is a strong word. I would not consider myself hurt, less than 100 percent is different than being hurt. You don't play hurt.
Tennis Acumen: Because I've had guys tell me everybody's hurt all the time.
Evan King: I believe that, especially in November. No one's actually 100 percent. Maybe in January. I would hope so. In January, everyone's 100 percent because you have a month off. But in November, no one feels great. You just manage what you can, and you compete to the best of your ability with whatever you have on that day. There was a withdrawal earlier today. In singles he went into the match saying:”I know I have something going on, but I'm going to push it and see what I can get out of it.” And then the injury got aggravated. Maybe it went a little bit worse than he expected. And maybe there are some long-term issues that could happen if he kept playing or something like that. I have a lot of fatigue wear and tear from travel this season and everything, but I'm not hurt. That's a strong, strong word. I would not be in Champaign playing this event if I were hurt.
Tennis Acumen: Yeah, I appreciate the clarification there.
Evan King: Yeah, but it's more just wear and tear and crazy fatigue and yeah, just aches and pains and random things.
Tennis Acumen: It would be better said that everybody is playing ‘hurting’ rather than ‘hurt’.
Evan King: exactly. I would say that for sure.
More of this exclusive interview is available at Tennis Acumen. Go to the interviews category, shown on the upper right hand side of the screen.
Tags: @EvanKingChicago
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