Keothavong Blog: Roll on 2010
Anne reflects on the past five months and looks forward to returning to competition, starting with Fed Cup in February
I don’t know about everyone else, but 2010 can’t come soon enough for me. I’ll be making my comeback from injury in February representing Great Britain at Fed Cup in Lisbon, Portugal and I’m literally counting down the days to when I can compete again.
The past five months have gone quickly for me and that’s mainly down to staying as active and busy as possible. I’m running around and training as normal and I don’t feel my injury holds me back anymore, it’s just a case of getting match fit and that will come in time
My family have managed to keep me sane and I’ve had a really good team of people around me who have helped me on a day to day basis throughout my injury. Nigel Sears has helped me enormously with my game over the last few years and even more so since my injury to help get me back on track. He knows how hard I work and how motivated I am go get back to where I was and I’m glad he’s shown belief in me by selecting me to be part of the Fed Cup team.
Luke Milligan, Will Herbert and James Auckland have all been helping me a lot on court too. It’s nice to have a variety of people to practice with and we’re all on the same page so it works and they give me honest feedback. My fitness trainer, Steve Kotze and physio, Rob Hill have done the majority of my rehab work away from the tennis court with me. They’ve kept me challenged but I’ve been a good student too!
Without these people, the last five months would’ve felt even harder. I’m a very driven and ambitious person but I have my off days and to succeed you need a good team of people around you who you trust and will motivate you when you’re down. We don’t always agree on everything but as long as you agree on more than you disagree with then that’s ok.
I hope everyone had a good Christmas; I spent the day with my family and aunts, uncles and cousins. I’m a Buddhist so we didn’t celebrate it in a religious way but it was great to be with everyone and indulge in a lot of yummy food! We still give each other presents and I got lots of nice little things which was sweet.
The next few weeks for me will be spent playing a lot of practice matches and continuing with the strength and conditioning work I’ve been doing. I feel ready to compete again but the most important thing for me in 2010 is to remain healthy and happy.
Speak to you soon,
Anne x