Microfracture surgery — these are two words that no athlete wants to hear consecutively. Those words have ruined potentially explosive careers and dulled once finely tuned athletic assets.
Nine months ago, senior Maggie Yahner of the Virginia women’s tennis team underwent this procedure on her knee — and she didn’t even know about it until after she woke up from the operation. After her kneecap popped out of its socket in an April 18 match during the ACC Tournament last year, Yahner said she went into surgery May 9 believing that doctors solely intended to repair damaged cartilage. Though doctors warned Yahner just before she went on the operating table that microfracture surgery was a possibility, she was told that they would not know for sure until they saw the inside of the knee firsthand.
“I went in for the surgery, and I just thought, ‘Oh, we’re doing this light cartilage procedure, and I’ll be back in a couple weeks,’” Yahner said. “Then [the doctors] were like, ‘As a side note, there might be no cartilage in there — we might have to put some cracks. But we’ll let you know when you wake up.’”
When they went in, they saw that all the cartilage on the left side of Yahner’s knee was gone.
“It was just bone rubbing on bone,” she said. Doctors made nine small fractures in her knee to stimulate scar tissue growth, she said.
Yahner, though, did not take the news well when she awoke.
“I just started bawling in the emergency room,” Yahner said.
After a summer and fall full of intense rehab, Yahner, who played in the No. 3 or No. 4 singles slots last season, has dropped to No. 6 as she continues to try to regain her mobility as the spring season gets going.
“I definitely feel like I’m a lot slower,” Yahner said. “I know if someone hits a drop shot, that’s going to be extremely painful, [or] if there’s a really out-wide ball where I have to sharp turn or stop real fast — that’s what hurts the most.”
Furthering Yahner’s frustration, her recovery has been much more lengthy and cumbersome than she had hoped: The pain in her knee worsened in September. Virginia coach Mark Guilbeau added that Yahner suffered another setback when she slipped in the weight room at the end of the fall season. Yahner even said, with just one spring season remaining at Virginia, she wondered at times whether it was even worth continuing with her tennis career.
“When it became evident that this was going to be a really long process, I kind of wondered if I’d ever be able to ever play without all this pain that I’ve been going through,” Yahner said. “I’m feeling more confident about it now to say the least.”
Guilbeau, however, said he was assured from the beginning that not only would Yahner be back, but that she would return at or near full strength.
The doctors “made it pretty clear from the get-go that it was going to be one of the best things, and that her knee may actually feel better than it’s felt in the last two or three years,” Guilbeau said.
And, perhaps as an unexpected silver lining, Yahner’s injury forced her to work on fundamentals of her game to an extent she had never been able to do before.
“We were with her almost every day hitting stationary, so some of her skills actually improved in the summer by having her do it without any movement,” Guilbeau said. “It put the impetus on her hands and that part of the game rather than her legs, so it was a neat experiment and a neat process for all of us.”
As the spring season continues, Yahner clearly still is not back to 100 percent. Though she has excelled in doubles of late, partnering with freshman Lindsey Hardenbergh to go 4-1 thus far, she has experienced more difficulty in singles, when she has more court to cover. After going 4-5 to start the season, Yahner was removed from the singles lineup after freshman Karoline Steiro was added to the roster and declared eligible by the NCAA last week.
While the quest to regain her old form is still ongoing, Yahner said she is hopeful that she will peak toward the end of the season, which would come at exactly the right time for a Virginia team that has aspirations of going deep into the NCAA Tournament.
“I guess they say the true test of an athlete is how well they come back from an injury,” Yahner said.
Read More
Virginia annihilated 41-14 in a must-win contest versus North Carolina
By Peter Kriebel | 3 hours agoJust about everything that could have gone wrong for Virginia football went wrong.
No. 24 women’s soccer not to be denied in late win over Clemson
By Sam Chun | 8 hours agoThe Cavaliers topped Clemson 1-0 in front of a packed out Klöckner Stadium.
Men’s soccer, totally discombobulated, capitulates early to No. 5 Pittsburgh
By Michael Liebermann | 10 hours agoPittsburgh set a program record for the quickest cluster of three goals.
