King targets April return

The king of swing is aiming for mid April.

Barbados’ best ever tennis player Darian King believes he can get back on tour by next month after gauging his troublesome left wrist during last week’s Davis Cup assignment in Norway.

King made the assessment in a telephone interview with Barbados TODAY just days following a straight-sets defeat to Vikto Durasovic.

“I’m a bit sore right now but that was to be expected because we all knew I wasn’t entering the week at 100 percent, so at least I was able to use that as a mark to see where I am because now I know the pain is still there,” said the 27-year-old baseliner.

“Of course getting injured is a part of sports but at the same time it’s really hard to sit down here and watch my ranking continue to fall so I am working really hard to get back out there because obviously I can’t stay off tour for too much longer.

“I’ve been told I don’t require surgery at least but it feels like something more is happening than what we can see so I am going to go through some more MRIs and if anything maybe I will take some cortisone injects, rehab some more and then get back out there,” he added.

It’s the latest development in an ongoing issue for King, who initially had problems with that same left wrist as far back as 2015.

Diagnosed as tendinitis, the injury wasn’t able to prevent King from becoming the first tennis player to represent Barbados at both the Olympics and the main draw of a grand slam.

But after years of pain management the injury finally took its toll this season, knocking the Bajan ace off the ATP tour for the last two months.

As a result of not playing since the Australian Open qualifiers, King has watched his singles ranking plummet all the way down to no.265 in the world.

Even when he managed to return for Davis Cup duty last week King resorted to just slicing the backhand instead of going for his typically reliable two-foster.

As such, the veteran of 28 Davis Cup ties only appeared in that opening singles match, as he opted to sit out both the doubles and reverse singles.

“It was tough to sit there and watch because leading up to that week I was putting in as much work as possible but I just wasn’t confident in the wrist the whole time,” King explained.

“We just decided to let Kaipo [Marshall] go out there for the doubles because we were already down 2-0 and I didn’t want to take that risk of making the wrist any worse.

“So for me now it is try to do some MRIs again with ink to see the finer parts of my wrist and maybe take more cortisone shots, rest for three weeks and do some rehab work so I can get back out on the tour by next month,” he added.

With King compromised, Barbados lost that Group I tie to Norway 4-0 after dropping both opening singles matches on the first day.

Haydn Lewis lost 6-2, 6-2 to world no.32 Casper Ruud before he and Marshall went down 6-3, 6-3 against Ruud and Durasovic.

Marshall then played a meaningless fourth rubber against Lukas Hellum Lilleengen, who won 6-2, 6-1.