Tennis: Stress Fracture Forces Andrea Petkovic to Take a Vacation

The friendly personable woman from Germany was diagnosed with a stress fracture in her lower back which kept her from playing in the Australian Open back in January. Now it seems she will not be able to play in Paris, Qatar and Dubai—and who knows how much longer.

This was what she posted on her official website:

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Andrea Petkovic has to withdraw from the Australian Open due to a stress fracture in her lower back.

"I'm so disappointed," said Andrea. "I've been having some back problems for the last three or four months. I've been struggling with it, but I've always believed it was going to be fine and so I pushed through the pain. The last two weeks in Australia I've been having bigger problems. I could only play for 30 to 45 minutes without pain. After the match against Agnieszka, I decided to have an MRI and a CT and the results showed a stress fracture in my lower back."

"The only thing I can do right now is rest, not walking or sitting a lot, just lying down and hoping that the bone will heal as fast as possible." It will take the 24-year-old German about six weeks to recover from the injury.

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I did some research on lower back stress fractures to find out more, and here is what I found: the medical term is spondylolysis and it's the most common overuse injury involving the lower back. It is mostly found in adolescents but can effect anyone at any age, especially those who do sports where they must bend backwards a lot.

To go even more in-depth: stress fractures in the lower back region are usually found in the lower lumbar vertebrate region known as L5, which is where the lumbar spine comes together with the fixed pelvis. When a strain occurs in the vertebra it adds more bone cells around the area to help with support.

However, if the injury occurs consistently and faster than the body can keep up with, it may cause the weakened bone to crack—known as a stress fracture. The stress fracture is located in the pars which is the bony ring that lies between the pedicle and lamina.

It takes six weeks for the bone to heal and then starts the process of doing unique exercises to help strengthen the muscles.

I have always been a big fan of Petkovic so I wish her a speedy recovery!

To learn more about spondylolysis, check out the Winchester Hospital website.