Borna Coric reflects on painful and mentally tough recovery process

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Former world No. 12 Borna Coric admitted the recovery process following a shoulder surgery was mentally tough as he was doing his best to return to the court quickly but the progress he was making was slow to none. Coric reached the Rotterdam semifinal in the March of 2021 and two months later underwent a shoulder surgery.

Coric was hopeful he would be able to return at some point in 2021 but that didn't happen. “It’s just not easy spending a couple of hours in the gym, not seeing big improvements and at times realising [you aren’t] really close to playing tennis,”Coric told the ATP website.

“I [was] doing all of that to play tennis, [but] sometimes I didn’t see my reward coming”.

Coric delayed his comeback several times

Coric traveled with the Croatian team for the Davis Cup Finals but pulled out of the event.

Coric was one of the first players to arrive to Australia but in the end decided to skip the Australian Open. Coric, who also pulled out of several events in February, made his long-awaited comeback this Thursday in Indian Wells.

In his first match in a year, Coric competed well but suffered a tight three-set defeat to Alejandro Davidovich Fokina. “The recovery process was not easy,” said Coric. “All those exercises, I am not really used to that.

Spending hours in the gym, working on the shoulder only. At times it was quite painful as well after the surgery, so I needed to get used to that. It was not easy, probably the toughest part of my career, [but] hopefully now that’s just behind me and I can continue playing”.

Coric, now ranked at No. 167 in the world, admits his top priority is to stay healthy. “[I have] really no [set] goals at all,” Coric said. “Just to stay healthy. I know that pretty much everyone says that, but in my case, I think it’s really the most important to stay healthy, play tennis and enjoy [being] on the court”.