Bianca Andreescu is targeting a return to the clay court season as she looks to compete at the Olympic Games.
The Canadian hasn’t played a competitive tournament since Montreal last year where she went out in the opening round to Camila Giorgi.
Andreescu has been dealing with a number of injuries as the 23 year-old continues to struggle with consistency.
Now the world number 145 faces a race against time to be fit for the Olympic Games this summer.
Speaking to the BNP Paribas Open website Andreescu spoke about her return to practice and what her aims are over the next few weeks, “It’s been a crazy seven, eight months since I played my last match (in August),” Andreescu explained.
“Obviously I’ve been dealing with the back injury but that’s been healed now. I’m basically just starting to train again, taking it easy because I don’t want to make it worse.
“The Olympics are this year. It’ll be my first Olympics, so I want to be able to play that tournament. We’re taking it step by step. I was talking to my friend earlier today. The reason why I play tennis is that I love to compete so much.
“It’s obviously nice to be here but I would have loved to play. But I’m feeling much better, now that I’m healed. I can play again and now the goal is the French Open. I’ve been training on the clay.”
These are all positive signs for fans of Andreescu as the Canadian looks to make a big impact on her return.
However Andreescu fans should approach optimism with caution as the former US Open champion soon explained, “I started training about a month ago, and no, I’m not completely ready to start playing practice sets,” Andreescu commented.
“We’re hoping in the next two or three weeks that I can start to ramp up. Right now, the main focus is just building my back and my fitness so that when I start playing points, I won’t have any issues. We want to make practice as difficult as possible so that when I start competing again, that matches are super easy. It’s gradual.”
Andreescu will hope to be fit for the Olympic Games with the tennis event starting on the 27th of July at Roland Garros.
