Alisa Kleybanova has cancer

[lexpretend]

Stage 2 Hodgkin's Lymphoma. I don't know anything about that, but yikes. 90% survival rate which seems to be a positive, at least, and I'd guess she'll be back at some point. Still

[janie]

Oh no! Poor kid.

[Grarliner]

Most likely she will recover. Most people do from this.

Mario Lemieux had Hodgkin's, too. And he did come back successfully to the NHL. Hopefully we see Kleybanova back on Tour before long and just as good as before.

[Old Hag]

Even if Alisa ends up fine, she'll probably be out at least a year. Shame, she's only 22. Best wishes.

And she'll have to lose weight... /asshole

[DBBN]

Heart-stopping news. I hope for a full recovery, and will be rooting for her vociferously upon her return.

[lexpretend]

Wow, she's back already. WC to Miami this month. Great news!

www.wtatennis.com/news/20120229/alisa-kleybanovas-special-message_2256076_2627747

Hi to all my friends and fans!

It has been a long time since my last message... and now I really want to get back in touch with you and share all the great things and emotions I have!

I finished my treatments in December and a couple of weeks ago I did my last tests in Italy. The treatments were successful, my doctors are happy with my health and I'm feeling great!

I would like to thank the Hospital Gemelli in Rome (Prof. Giuseppe Leone, Dott. Stefan Hohaus and their Team), and the Hospital Silvestrini in Perugia (Prof. Brunangelo Falini, Dott. Flavio Falcinelli and their Team). From the bottom of my heart I want to thank my coach Iulian Vespan, my boyfriend Giacomo, my family and my close friends that were next to me all this time. I will never forget it...

I have started to train and right now I'm in Florida playing tennis again!!! It was physically really hard in the beginning, but it was so emotional that I didn't want to get off the court This is just amazing, I'm working out every day now and enjoying it so much more than before!

More than anything, I've missed the competition. For me tennis is not just going on the court and hitting the ball - it's testing yourself, seeing how good you are, trying new things, trying to improve, trying to win... For me the best part of tennis is the competition and I'm really looking forward to my comeback!

By the way, I just got confirmed my main draw wildcard into the Miami tournament, so I will see you guys really soon!!!

I don't think I have ever been more excited )

Alisa

[janie]

[DBBN]

So great

[Paean]

This thread should be renamed.

That's what I saw when browsing through the last 25 posts:

Re: Alisa Kleybanova has cancer
« Result #3 Today at 10:14am »

So great


Was like, WTF?

[DBBN]

CANCER IS GREAT

[Traveling Man]

I hope she enjoys the experience of being back - winning a match would be a bonus!

[janie]

She's back again. Not a Premier WC but 10K qualies this time. Here's her eighth of the Qdraw in Landisburg, Pa this week:

(7)Brooke Rischbieth (AUS) v Alisa Kleybanova (RUS)
Joanna Zalewski (USA) v Petra Januskova (CAN)
Milica Zivanovic (CAN) v Claudine Maheu (CAN)
Sydney Campbell (USA) v Madeleine Kobelt (USA)

[janie]

Jul 15, 2011 23:52:51 GMT -5 DBBN said:

Heart-stopping news. I hope for a full recovery, and will be rooting for her vociferously upon her return.

This starts today.

[DBBN]

She played a couple of matches last year too.

[janie]

Did she? I thought it was 2 years ago, the Miami thing. I guess she's coming back in fits and starts. Like Dokic.

[janie]

Maybe I'll go see her play if she makes it to Saturday.

[janie]

No Frills on the Road Back
Ben Rothenberg for The New York Times

By BEN ROTHENBERG
Published: May 14, 2013

LANDISVILLE, Pa. — There were a lot of tennis tournament essentials missing on Sunday at the $10,000 U.S.T.A. Pro Circuit tournament at Hempfield Recreation Center here.

There were no ball girls or boys. No line judges. No chair umpire. No electronic scoreboard.

But there was a woman who was ranked No. 20 in world in singles and No. 10 in doubles a little more than two years ago.

In May 2011, two months after reaching those career highs, Alisa Kleybanova, then 21, received a diagnosis of Hodgkin’s lymphoma that forced her off the tour.

She beat the disease, a triumph more important than victories over the former No. 1s Kim Clijsters and Jelena Jankovic.

Kleybanova tried a comeback just 10 months after receiving her diagnosis, accepting a wild card into the tournament in Key Biscayne, Fla., in March 2012. She won her first-round match against 64th-ranked Johanna Larsson. But after losing her next match, to 22nd-ranked Maria Kirilenko, she began to realize that her body was not ready for such a high level of competition.

“My body just gave up, because I wasn’t physically ready to do that,” Kleybanova said. “Basically, the match I won with Larsson, I was going way far over my limits.

“I was completely exhausted way before we finished the match. I basically had so much will that I mentally overpowered that match.”

For the next year, Kleybanova dedicated herself to training, not competing. But she is playing this week to maintain her eligibility for a protected ranking.

Because she is playing, she will be able to enter as many as eight tournaments using the ranking of 22 that she had at the time of her diagnosis.

Kleybanova picked Landisville because she correctly thought higher-ranked players would be playing in Europe, allowing her to qualify for the field and play against less-threatening competition. Her first-round match was against an 18-year-old Australian, Brooke Rischbieth, ranked No. 1,149 in the world.

Kleybanova won convincingly, 6-1, 6-1. She was not as quick or consistent as she had previously been, but nearly any time she hit the ball with conviction, Rischbieth could not send it back across the net.

“I got taught a lesson on tennis today,” Rischbieth said in a Twitter message after the match.

Kleybanova won two more routine matches to qualify for the main draw. She will play Jacqueline Wu, an unranked American, in the first round of the main draw Wednesday night.

The matches in Landisville were a far cry from her fourth-round match with Venus Williams at Wimbledon in 2008. Kleybanova had to fetch her own balls, call her own lines and keep her own score.

In the match preceding Kleybanova’s, the players twice met at the net to argue line calls and even the score itself. For Kleybanova, play was often delayed when a ball bounced into a cluster of shrubbery, with the player nearest having to forage through the leaves.

Kleybanova had not played in such a low-level tournament since she was 14. In the fifth tournament of her professional career, she won a main draw match at the prestigious Indian Wells event and did not look back.

Still, this step down served to relax Kleybanova, who likened the atmosphere to a practice session.

“The girl was trying hard today; she gave me some trouble as well during the points,” Kleybanova said. “But when you’re playing at this level, for me, it’s always a few important points during the set that you have to make, and then the set is yours. It’s not the time when you have to give 100 percent every point.”

For her three qualifying wins, Kleybanova pocketed $104 in prize money. The tournament’s eventual champion will receive just 18 ranking points and $1,440.

It is different this week in Rome, a tournament Kleybanova played shortly before receiving her diagnosis two years ago. A player who wins just one main draw match there will earn 70 ranking points and roughly $13,000. The champion in Rome will claim 900 ranking points and roughly $444,000.

Kleybanova, who has earned more than $2 million in her career, said she had enough saved to not have to worry about prize money during this stage of her comeback.

“When I’m feeling good, I’m going to start playing big ones, get my ranking up, and there the prize money is going to come,” she said.

The one thing she did have to worry about Sunday was the four balls that were allotted for the match. As the winner, she had the duty of returning all four to the tournament referee’s desk. After some digging through the shrubs, she found them and walked off court a winner.

[lexpretend]

Ben Rothenberg is such a good tennis journalist.

I didn't know winners of 10K matches has the responsibility of returning the balls

[DBBN]

May 15, 2013 11:54:22 GMT -5 lexpretend said:

Ben Rothenberg is such a good tennis journalist.

I WAS JUST ABOUT TO POST THIS EXACT SENTENCE.

Anyway...yeah now I remember that Alisa is a little bit...arrogant.

[matvey]

I don't see anything wrong with what she said, just stating the obvious IMO.

[DBBN]

And, naturally, obvious things don't need to BE stated.

[matvey]

She had to say something.

[janie]

She managed to win from 1-5 down in the 3rd today. I'm sure Alisa was a doughty warrior out there, but I can't help but suspect a major, major bumpkinette choke was also involved here. "I'm about to beat a former top-20 player, yay! Wait, AAARGGH!HH!!"

[DBBN]

Definitely. That was an "I was a top player and you never will be" comeback/choke.

[janie]

Alisa won the title. Not bad, 9 matches in, what, 8 days? Well done, kid.

[DBBN]

Good job!

Interesting to see what her next event will be.

[lexpretend]

Alisa

I read she only played to maintain her SR eligibility and this isn't the start of a comeback proper, but all those matches in one tournament must be a good sign w/r/t her recovery time.