04/26/24
July 07, 2017
Tennis Player Suffers Terrible Knee Injury at Wimbledon: The American tennis player Bethanie Mattek-Sands, the No. 1 doubles player in the world, was playing a second-round singles match Thursday against Sorana Cirstea when she fell with a terrible knee injury. Mattek-Sands screamed in agony for help after the fall, Cirstea and many onlookers in obvious anguish and her knee visibly damaged. This video shows some details, omitting the sound, and here's a tweet with how crazy the situation was as it unfolded..
It looked like her knee cap was dislocated (like what happened to the Yankees outfielder Dustin Fowler), and I'm guessing another muscle/ligament tore in the process.
That would have been a helpless feeling for Cirstea. You want to comfort her, but there is absolutely nothing you can do about her pain. The last thing you'd want to do is touch/move the leg and possibly do even more damage.
posted by grum@work at 02:48 PM on July 07, 2017
It seemed to take a long time for medical care to arrive, though Wimbledon claims it was only a minute.
Cirstea had a good point in an interview. She said if it had been a heart problem the response time could have been tragic.
It seems reasonable to expect there to be a medic on hand, or at least enough medics stationed where there's one adjacent to each court serving multiple courts.
Also, the chair umpire should be coming to the aid of a stricken athlete in serious distress. This one did nothing, got down, went back up and finally spoke to someone on a walkie talkie after a lot of time had elapsed.
posted by rcade at 11:30 AM on July 09, 2017
Holy crap, that's terrible! Hope she's back on the court as soon as reasonable.