Johanna Konta dealt with a "massive range of symptoms" when she was sick with COVID-19 last month, adding it was "definitely the worst illness I've experienced for a very long time"; British No 1 faces Elina Svitolina in Montreal after winning on her comeback
Wednesday 11 August 2021 09:28, UK
Johanna Konta says catching COVID-19 was "definitely the worst illness I've experienced for a very long time" as the Briton returned to action after a two-month absence.
The Briton had to withdraw from Wimbledon after coming into close contact with a positive case of coronavirus and subsequently contracted the virus herself to miss the Olympic Games in Tokyo.
Konta overcame some struggles to make it through her opening match against China's Shuai Zhang at the National Bank Open in Montreal as she made a winning return on Tuesday.
After dropping the first set, Konta was up 5-2 in the second when Zhang retired - setting up a second-round clash with third seed Elina Svitolina.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Konta said missing out on Wimbledon and the Olympics was "heartbreaking".
"It was very difficult. There was nothing good and nothing fun about having COVID and having to miss Wimbledon and the Olympics. There's just no way around that," Konta said.
"However, I consider myself quite a happy person, quite a positive person, and definitely a pragmatic person, and I like to practice perspective in all the good things I do have in my life. So I had to definitely utilise those tools. And at the end of the day, I looked at my life and everything's OK.
"I just tried to draw energy from there and looked forward to when I could start training and get back out onto the match court."
Konta took it "very, very slowly" before returning to training after almost three weeks of coping with the symptoms.
"I got my full check, in terms of my heart, my lungs, everything, and everything came back all OK," Konta said. "Then we started doing a little more and here we are."
The British No 1, who has been ranked as high as No 4 in the world, has not been vaccinated for COVID-19, but says she is "not against it".
"I think, obviously, now I'm not advised to get vaccinated quite yet. I think it'll give me a little bit of time to also see where the world is, how everything is going and then I will make a personal choice on kind of when and how and where and all those things."
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