Parish takes break

22 January 2010

Upminster ace Helen Parish has been forced to take a month-long break from the ITF Futures Tour due to injury.

Former Coopers pupil Parish, 19, had to withdraw from the $10,000 event in Glasgow last week - her first outing since picking up a rib injury in November.

And she decided to pull out of this week's tournament in Wrexham, in favour of some rest and making a complete recovery.

"I was already carrying a shoulder injury before I went up to Glasgow," said Parish.

"The muscles around my shoulder had tightened up due to the strength work I was doing and this made serving painful.

"I had physio before I went and saw the tournament physio every day, but things didn't seem to improve too much.

"I had to change my serve in my first round match and use a completely different technique to make it pain-free. But it's likely changing my serve so drastically caused a different injury in my second match.

"My shoulder was improving and had loosened off a bit and I managed to go back to my normal serve, but I started to get a sharp pain in my knee.

"I've previously had tendonitis and think different movements I was using for my serve set it off. It started to limit my movement so much it wasn't worth continuing."

Parish hopes to return to action at a British Tour event in Corby on February 15 and added: "These smaller injuries could be a knock-on effect from the rib injury I had and, in hindsight, I think I set the deadline a bit too short for coming back to competitive tennis.

"I'm going to train and make sure I'm fully injury-free for the next three to four weeks.