Injury-prone Ana Konjuh has been sidelined from the tour for an unspecified amount of time after undergoing another operation on her elbow.
The former world No.20 confirmed on social media that she has undergone ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction. A medical procedure where the ulnar collateral ligament in the elbow is replaced with either a tendon from elsewhere in the body, or tendon from donated tissue of another person. Konjuh has only played four singles matches this year with her sole victory occurring during her country’s Fed Cup tie against Georgia.
“As the majority of you know I’ve been having elbow problems the last few years, I’ve done some procedures on it, took some time off, basically tried everything that could’ve helped me to play tennis with no pain. But as it turns out it wasn’t enough.” Konjuh wrote on Instagram.
“The few matches I played this year were okay, manageable, but the pain came back strong few days ago. After many considerations and doctors visits I decided to give it one last try and do the ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction.’
Despite being only 21, Konjuh has already undergone numerous surgeries on her elbow. She has undergone procedures on her right arm in both 2014 and 2017. Since her 2017 surgery, Konjur has only been able to play in six WTA tournaments. Resulting in her dropping outside of the world’s top 500.
“The recovery will be long and slow, I don’t really have a time frame on when I’ll be back, after the first few months of normal protocol for rehab most of it will depend on how my elbow is reacting afterwards so I guess we will have to see how it goes.” Konjuh explained.
A former junior Australian Open champion, Konjuh made a successful transition to the professional circuit during her teenage years. At the age of 17 she claimed her first WTA title at the 2015 Nottingham Open. A year later she achieved her best ever grand slam performance by reaching the quarter-finals of the US Open after stunning fourth seed Agnieszka Radwanska. So far in her career, she has earned $2,057,037 in prize money.
The last time Konjuh was ranked in the world’s top 100 was almost a year ago in April 2018.
