THE CHAMPIONSHIPS

June 29, 2022

Kyle Edmund

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Great news you are coming back in the mixed doubles. Can you talk about how you feel coming back to Wimbledon.

KYLE EDMUND: Yeah, thank you. It's great, to be honest. I have been out a long time. So for me, just being back playing a match, you know, to start with, that's, yeah, feels like a reward for me just to be back and playing, to be honest.

Being around here now, I have spent a couple of weeks hitting with everyone, practicing with people. For me, it just wasn't so much about being here to win. It was just more being back amongst it and stuff. Around the players, the tournament, yeah, I have missed it a lot. I had to watch a lot of TV with people. It definitely feels good.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Tell us exactly what the injury was and the kind of timeline. I think you had the first op in March 2021 and then another one earlier this year.

KYLE EDMUND: In terms of like the actual details, I don't really want to say exactly what I had, but I basically had damage on my knee, and the first one was actually November 2020. It was pretty much when the season ended that I wanted just to straightaway get something done.

The idea was to sort of come back for that year, but I just never really recovered well enough and kind of didn't address the problem that I was feeling, just ultimately pain in my knee. Couldn't take the load on it. Just was like a sharp pain every time I got into a certain position.

Yeah, then, yeah, March obviously last year I had my sort of big procedure. That was when it took a long time of recovery to get back, just very slow to start off with, having to go through the whole steps of everything.

Yeah, just was feeling improvement, not at the sort of rate that I wanted to. Yeah, it was just taking long, but ultimately I had to be patient, because the nature of the operation required me to be patient with it, but it's obviously hard to do that.

It was probably February this year where I started to feel more of an improvement. I went over to Philadelphia to see Bill Knowles, and I really, really enjoyed that, felt like I was getting good advice and good improvement from that. I really felt like I had a road to go on from there where I felt like if I keep going like this I can feel the improvement, I can feel more of an athlete, I can move more freely.

So the plan was obviously to keep rehabbing, keep being patient with it. But I could feel like now I can see a little bit more light at the end of the tunnel, I can have more of a feel when I'm going to play.

The plan was to play at the start of the grass. Then, yeah, about eight weeks ago now I'd probably say today, I had to have a small procedure because the knee flared up again. The recovery has been very good from that, which was the first time where I had a procedure and the recovery was quicker.

So that's why I was sort of basically able to play the mixed, otherwise if the timeline that was sort of set after that, I wouldn't be able to play the grass. So it's basically a bonus to be here.

Q. Apart from the pain you have been getting, before you could see a road ahead earlier this year, how hard was it psychologically? What did you do to cope with that? Who did you reach out to in the tennis community about dealing with this kind of long-term problem?

KYLE EDMUND: It was just sore to play on, so I played on it for a while, probably a couple years. I mean, obviously missed quite a lot of 2020 with the no tournaments. So I kind of was, Okay, I'm going to train through this and make it better but just couldn't quite get there.

I was like, I don't really want to play the rest of my career feeling like this. So let's do something about it.

Yeah, just it took a long time. It's not an injury that heals by itself, and there is no straightforward procedure to have it. It's just something that's now part of my life. Like I have just accepted that.

We have tried so many different things to try and get round it. Obviously you start off as noninvasive as possible. When things don't work you have to make decisions.

Yeah, it's that. I will constantly be dealing with it. It's not like now that I've had three ops it's all fixed. I will constantly be dealing with it. But I'm happy where I'm at and I can enjoy playing now and just wake up and be a tennis player rather than a professional rehabber, which was what I was feeling for a long time.

Q. Do you feel then that it would be possible for you to get back to the levels you were at before, or are you setting yourself a different path maybe now?

KYLE EDMUND: Yeah, I want to, for sure. That's my goal. You have to have goals like that. I don't feel the way I feel now has made me have the mindset of I don't think I can quite get there.

I definitely, you know, want to -- I can't say like, Oh, I can compete in the future. I'm going to do that. But the way I'm training, the way my ambitions are, I want to give myself the best chance that I can and play.

It's not really like, you know, where I get to -- you can refer to it as my ranking, as being like can I get to 14 again or something like that? It's more like, can I put myself in a position to play the tournaments who then allow me to win matches. Can I put myself in a position to be able to play at a level where I can beat the guys to then get to the later rounds of tournaments.

So that's ultimately the goal, but right now it's just enjoying being here, really. I wasn't able to pick a racquet up for like five or six months. It was just too sore. It was sore to go up and down stairs. So to be able to hit now, you know, with the best players in the world or be at this tournament, even if it is the mixed doubles in terms of I'm not playing the singles, but it's a start for me. Just to be playing again is great, to be honest.

At times I was, like, I don't know where this is going. I don't know how I'm going to get back playing. So it feels like a reward for me to be here.

Q. Did you think there might not be a future at one point?

KYLE EDMUND: I never thought about retiring, as extreme as that. But I was struggling to really see how I was going to play in terms of the way I was feeling, just I need to be able to play best of five sets and be on court for three, four hours against the best guys in the world, throwing my body around. At that time I definitely could not have done that. It was hard to see in that way.

It was kind of like the old cliché, everyone is like, You've just got to keep going, it will come, the patience will pay off. I was struggling to see it in that way. I just knew regardless, I didn't feel like I had control on it. It was just out of my control. I was trying a lot of things.

But the only thing I could control was the effort to try and get back. So that was what I was trying to do. In some way I'm here now and hitting. Going to be on a match court in some way.

In America, that's the plan is to play singles over there.

Q. How did you find the last two years psychologically and emotionally? Were there a lot of ups-and-downs? What do you think was the most difficult part of that process emotionally to deal with?

KYLE EDMUND: Yeah, it was tough. No doubt about it. It obviously taught me a lot of things. I have only known tennis for my whole career really. So when I didn't have that, there was times where I was speaking to someone and I was saying like, I feel like I've lost my identity. Like I've only known tennis, like I'm a tennis player. So now I don't have that. What am I doing? Every time I wake up in the morning, I have no purpose.

So that was stuff I struggled with. It was just, like, waking up and -- I would do rehab and go to the gym, but at that time I could only kind of do 30 minutes or an hour of rehab and it was very light. Then the rest of the day, I was kind of just like, you know, I'm not doing what I want to do.

For a long time, it was tough in that way. Just, yeah, mentally and obviously watching stuff on TV, and seeing the guys that you played against playing on tour, and just experiencing that.

So yeah, it taught me a lot in that way and what I did have, really. Now that I didn't have it, it was just you just take things a lot more less for granted. Not that I was -- I wouldn't say I'm a person that took everything for granted and was arrogant in that way, but just realized what I did have.

So extremely feel like I'm -- just to be around here at the minute is like every day it's like -- like I said, I didn't play for five, six months. Every day now I'm waking up and playing. It's just a really nice feeling.

So there will be a time where I wake up and I'll be like, I'm not playing well enough, this isn't good enough, I need to do this better. Or, you know, I'm slowing getting there, but at the minute it's just, I'm not really thinking like that. I'm just more thinking it's great to be here and back in some way.

Q. Addressing those psychological challenges, did you seek any kind of psychological support for coping with those? I know a lot of athletes do that. And also, what comfort did you take from Liverpool's success over the past two or three years to take your mind off sporting travails?

KYLE EDMUND: That was like one positive in my life. Most of the time they're winning every weekend. Yeah, it was a great season. Just a shame like the last ultimately two games just didn't quite go our way.

I was already sort of speaking to a psychologist before my injuries and stuff. So, yeah, that was just, like I've had that anyway in my life, but for sure, just speaking about it was helpful.

Yeah, and it's actually been a little bit interesting being here, because obviously guys have not seen me and have asked how I am, and a few guys that have been injured have asked. It was just interesting to speak to them about how they felt coming back. Like two guys that were injured for a long time with Kubler and Andujar. A lot of stuff they were saying was exactly how I felt right now.

So that was really interesting to speak to them. Yeah, it was tough. I'm not the first, I won't be the last person to have a long-term injury. It's part and parcel of sport, you know. Some more short than mine; some longer. So everyone's is different in their own way.

But, yeah, it's just been a really long time. It's great to be back, to be honest, and be amongst it.

To be able to play tennis now, I'm 27. I'll play as long as I can really. I've just got to enjoy as much as I can, because I felt like it was taken away from me in some way, and now I feel like I've got a bit more control of it and got a bit more of a grasp in it.

Yeah, I'm definitely sort of, you know, grateful for it and stuff.