It has been quiet around Jan-Lennard Struff in the last few weeks. Who the 32-year-olds at the ATP-Tournaments suspected, who searched in vain. After a persistent foot injury, Struff is fighting hard every day to be operational again. And these attempts are taking longer than originally thought. He has been suffering from his injuries for six weeks now – the end is open. “That’s a bit frustrating“, says the German tennis pro dem WDR on Monday (05/09/2022).
Struff joined at the end of March ATP-Tournament in Miami broken the big toe of his right foot. From this point on he had to pause with the racket. And when the healing process seemed to be on the right track, he was working on his fitness, suddenly there was pain in the metatarsus – possibly a small hairline tear.
While Struff was already able to do sprint exercises last week, this week he can only hit balls on the tennis court from a standing start. The foot reacted sensitively to the increased load with pain development.
Struff has to fight back
Another bitter setback for the Sauerland, because these weeks of the year are always very special for Struff. “The season started on clay. That’s one of my best surfaces. I’ve always played well there in the last two years and collected a lot of points. Now they’re all gone if I can’t play.”says Struff.
In addition, the start of the season was anything but ideal for him and he fell far short of his potential. So far it has been a year for Struff to almost forget from a sporting point of view.
All of this has consequences on the tennis tour. In the world rankings, Struff has now slipped from the 30th place to 93rd place. That means he might struggle to get into the main draw at some tournaments – and he’ll have to go through exhausting qualifying ahead of time. “Then I have to work my way up again”says Struff, who is combative despite the setbacks.
French Open are the goal
Struff is naturally impatient and finally wants to get back on the red ashes and prove his skills. How could it be otherwise with a professional. At the moment, however, he is still condemned to watching his colleagues on the screen. “At first I didn’t watch anything. Then a bit of the tournaments in Munich, Madrid and now Rome”says Struff.
His main goal is to take part in the French Open in Paris (May 23 to June 5), one of the four Grand Slam-Tournaments of the year. An ambitious project, because time is running out. “That’s my big wish. We’ll see if it works. Anyway, I’ll do everything for it”says Struff.