Oft-injured American not planning to retire yet
If there’s one thing Justin Gimelstob knows, it’s back trouble. So when he says his latest problem was the worst he’s ever faced, it’s not just an offhand comment.
After undergoing urgent back surgery earlier in the week, Gimelstob was released from his New Jersey hospital on Thursday and now begins a wait to see if he can resume his professional tennis career.
“I’m feeling sore,” Gimelstob said on Friday, sounding relatively cheerful. “They think it went well. Next few weeks I just rest, then I start rehab with my physical therapist, Gary Kitchell – slowly build up and see what happens.”
Gimelstob’s career has been on-again, off-again because of back and foot injuries for most of his 10-year pro career. He suffered two herniated disks in his back in 1998, the beginning of a long, torturous path that led to this latest and most frightening crisis. “This is the most serious. Anytime you have back surgery, it’s the most serious,” he said.
“When you lose feeling in your leg, it’s – stressful,” he added, drolly. “But I had full confidence in the doctors and what they said.”
The first inklings of trouble came when he began experiencing severe back pain in his mixed doubles quarterfinal at the US Open, where he was partnering Meghann Shaughnessy. They pulled out of the semifinals, but his condition worsened. “A couple of days after that, my back pain started going to my leg and I started to lose feeling my right leg,” he said. “That’s when they knew I had to have surgery right away.”
The surgery, which lasted about four hours, removed the herniated disk fragments in his back, which had been pressing the nerves in his spine and begun affecting his legs as a result.
The operation was successful in its purpose, but it’s too early to tell whether his back and leg will mend completely. “They’re hopeful I’ll be able to make a full recovery, but it depends on how much flexibility I maintain in my vertebrae,” he said. “The best-case scenario is that I’m a 100 per cent and all the back problems I’ve had over the years go away. The worst case scenario is I lose some mobility.”
But even in that case, Gimelstob added, he’ll only feel the effects on court. “They’re pretty confident it won’t affect my daily life, but my back may not be able to sustain the rigors of professional tennis again.”
Nevertheless, he’s targeting a return to the courts next year, perhaps as early as the beginning of the season. In the meantime, the plan is to do some writing (he writes an online column for the Sports illustrated website), take some more courses at UCLA, (he wants to eventually complete the degree program he started before leaving school to turn pro), and get in some downtime (like by “watching a lot of movies”).
“I don’t get a lot of chances to rest and relax, so I’m probably just going to catch up with friends and family and have a lot of time to think about what I want and what I’m going to do,” Gimelstob said.
The timing was particularly painful because Gimelstob was riding a wave of encouraging results. Last year at Wimbledon, he had to withdraw from qualifying with a – yes – back injury but got in as a lucky loser and upset Nicholas Massu in the second round before going down to Lleyton Hewitt in a flurry of flamboyant diving. This season, he reached his first tour final at Newport in July and returned to the top 80 after ending the last few years outside the top 100. “That’s the most disappointing aspect of it, but things could have been a lot worse,” he said. “I’m lucky I had a great surgeon, Dr. Jim Dwyer, and really thankful for the nurses and everybody.”
That sense of perspective is far removed from the younger Gimelstob, who remarked after a Hopman Cup loss in 1997, “I was probably like the South after the Civil War.”
Since then, he’s become accustomed to fighting his back and fighting back – the latter one more time, he hopes.“I’m going to try and make the best use of my time and also try and take a little bit of a break, and then hopefully see how my body recovers,” said Gimelstob. “I have every intention of playing professional tennis again.”