BADMINTON ace Carolina Marín is back in play – just nine months after a snapped ligament in her right knee forced her to leave court midway through the Indonesian Open final, she is now off to south-east Asia for the Vietnam Open.
The Huelva-born star – largely held to be Spain's best female badminton player in history, if not the world's best – has spent her long down-time practising her technique from a sitting position and says she has improved greatly, even though she has not been able to train in full on her feet.
She is treating the Vietnam Open as a 'mock exam' to see how far she is match-fit and what she needs to work on, since her main goal post-injury is ensuring she is 100% on form in time to represent her country in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Carolina, 26, is hoping to repeat her Rio 2016 performance and return with another gold medal.
The four-times European champion and three-times world champion, who broke all records when she kept her world number one spot for 66 weeks, was literally unstoppable before her injury in late January, which involved an immediate operation and instructions to rest up completely for at least six months.
This meant she was forced to scratch from the world championships, as she did not want to rush back to the game and risk aggravating her knee.
Captioned “Next stop: Vietnam Open,” Carolina posted the above photograph of her with her coach, Fernando Rivas, on her Twitter site, @CarolinaMarin.
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