My apologies for reposting my view here from the KOR Open tournament thread relating to the following two articles:
http://sports.sina.com.cn/others/bad...f8033434.shtml ,
http://news.xinhuanet.com/sports/201..._127274266.htm (thanks to pcll99 who first brought them to my attention and jkkwongnz's subsequent posts discussing the matter)
"Quote Originally Posted by jkkwongnz View Post :-
I think she went for conservative approach and rest for many months. I doubt we can see old LXR again but I hope she can put (prove) me wrong. what a shame!"
My post follows:
I recall the first sign of her injury was a twitch during her French Open Final last Oct'14 with WSX when she suddenly retired at the G2 mid-game interval (I remember some BCers accusing her of throwing the match). Two weeks later she aggravated her injury during training and the doctor proposed two treatment options, either surgery with a shorter, complete recuperation and recovery or the conservative, non-surgical method but much longer recovery period which also necessitated her putting on a cast for one month. She chose the latter option fearing surgery might lead to complications (perhaps after seeing what happened to Wang Xin and Wang Lin, wrongly and needlessly I think because theirs involved ACL, not her case of navicular bone stress fracture). After the cast was removed, she was eager to return to proper training; however, her rehab and recovery took longer than expected,in the end about 6 - 9 months to be fully match-fit.
Only now then I read her injury is similar to basketballer Yao Ming's, a tricky problem if not carefully handled esp when the athlete is too eager to resume proper training. On hindsight,I supposed her injury woes which included other ailments as reported in the said articles partly contributed to her loss of form and worsened her mental weakness and anxiety to perform.
Li Xuerui is now 24 years old, neither young nor old, I can only hope earnestly that she makes a successful, great comeback one day, the sooner the better. To me, she is the best WS player technically speaking and prodigiously talented. It'll be such a shame if her career is cut short just like that.
I admit I've been unduly harsh on her recently but that's because I have very high hopes of her and thought she has what it takes to be one of the greatest players of all time.