Wimbledon 2018: Bethanie Mattek-Sands breaks down in tears as she returns to the scene of her horror injury
American doubles star recalls of the pain: 'I remember kinda lying on my side counting blades of grass just to distract myself.'
BACK at Wimbledon for the first time since her horror injury last year, Bethanie Mattek-Sands can't hold back the tears.
The American star, winner of seven grand slams in doubles and mixed doubles, has invited SunSport to join her as she re-visited Court 17- and exorcising the demons sees her overcome with emotion.
On that very spot a year ago Mattek-Sands, now 33, was left in a heap needing oxygen at the All England Club after dislocating knee and rupturing the patella tendon; an injury so severe many thought she would have to retire.
Memories of the searing pain come flooding back, but it is a journey that needed to be made as Mattek-Sands admitted. She said: "I was going to come back, whether we did it with you guys or on my own.
"Come back and lay in the same area I went down, back to the court and almost let it go a little bit.
"I’m not really a big person for reminiscing, I don’t like to look back into the past too much. So this moment is a little different for me, because I’m kinda taking a second to look back.
“I have done it in my mind, obviously, visualising in my rehab – that was part of the process. As much it was a physical comeback, it was mentally trusting my body again, trusting my knee again.
“Being here, I can just let it go. I feel a little lighter now after that moment out there.
"But that was, yeah, wow. That was quite a day."
Mattek-Sands had gone into the 2017 Championships aiming to make a good run in the Ladies Singles, but it was in the Ladies Doubles where she was really set on doing the business.
Together with partner Lucie Safarova, the pair needed victory at Wimbledon to complete the Grand Slam of holding all four major titles at the same time. The pinnacle of a career which had also brought 2016 Olympic mixed-doubles gold was within touching distance.
In a second, the American’s hopes were gone.
Making a dash to the net in the first game of the third set of her second round singles match against Sirana Cirstea, the right kneecap ruptured and twisted around almost 90 degrees.
For 17 minutes she lay flat out, being comforted by her husband, Justin, as she was injected with morphine and given oxygen in an effort to dull the pain before the stretcher wheeled her into the back of an ambulance.
Amidst all that, some memories are etched on her mind.
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She said: “I’m not going to lie, I feel like I spent a lot of time lying here. It seemed like an eternity that I was down there on the ground.
“I remember at one point, it was excruciating; I remember kinda lying on my side counting blades of grass just to distract myself.
“There was so much going on around me, I just remember trying to focus on the grass. How many individual blades of grass there were.