Garbine Muguruza on Carla Suarez Navarro: "It was a shock"

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Former world no. 6 Carla Suarez Navarro revealed a little over a year ago that she had Hodgkin's lymphoma. The Spaniard has reached the quarterfinals in all Grand Slam tournaments except Wimbledon, where she has never made it past the fourth round.

"I found out before the US Open," revealed Garbine Muguruza, speaking of her countrywoman's illness. "It was a shock because you never expect it to happen to someone close to you, as well as to such a young athlete. and as successful as she is.

I talked to her a lot and he told me what to do and what not to do."

Garbine Muguruza reveals her friend's condition

Friends, compatriots and doubles partners, Muguruza and Suarez Navarro have won three titles in this speciality together: Stanford, Birmingham and Tokyo, between 2014 and 2015.

Talking about their meeting recently in the city of Barcelona, ​​the Caracas-born tennis player said: “I found her very well, very lively and with a lot of energy. I didn't know what to expect, it was an adrenaline rush for me." The two Iberian players took part together in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Doubles Olympics, managing to play the quarter-finals (defeated by the Russian couple consisting of Elena Vesnina and Ekaterina Makarova): "It left me a great feeling to be able to see it like this enthusiastic to regain strength and to return to compete.

I told her: I'll wait for you here for as long as you want." Garbine then briefly mentioned the upcoming Tokyo Games: “Her idea was to go, even if we don't know how to enter the scene. If this happens, I will definitely play with her." Muguruza won the Roland Garros 2016 and the next edition of the Wimbledon tournament, as well as reaching the final at the last Australian Open (beaten by the young American Sofia Kenin).

The greatests tennis stars on the planet, like Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka, Ashleigh Barty, Simona Halep, Garbine Muguruza and all the others, will come back for the upcoming Australian Open 2021, which will be held in Melbourne from 8 February: it will be the most awaited sports event of the first part of the new season.

It will be a very spectacualr season, and all of us hope without the problems of the last one, with some presence of the crowd in the courts across the world. Roger Federer, after having announced that he will not play the Australian Open, should come back on the tour, to the joy of his fans, at the end of February or at the beginning of March.

The new season has yet to begin but there is already a desire to put a disastrous 2020 behind us from all points of view and start the new year with the first Grand Slam of the year in the hope that the pandemic can slowly regress and bring back the planet to live seriously and also allow the world of sport to perform in front of the crowd.