Monday at the U.S. Open, a place Reilly Opelka has enjoyed many victories, the scoreboard of his first-round match said he lost.
But rarely has a result mattered less. Just being able to play was the most significant victory for the former Palm Coast kid.
Enduring three operations during the course of a two-year absence from the sport, and undergoing more than 120 injections to try to ease the pain, Opelka hadn’t been on a court at a Grand Slam since Wimbledon 2022.
So even though he fell to No. 18 seed Lorenzo Musetti in four sets, 7-6, 1-6, 6-1, 7-5, just being out there was rewarding.
“I definitely missed it, a lot,” Opelka told FlaglerLive after the match. “It’s a win for me just to be here and feel good.”
Opelka, the tallest man in pro tennis history at 6’11”, was once on top of the world. He won Junior Wimbledon in 2015, and rose to No. 17 in the ATP world rankings.
The troubles all began in the summer of 2022, when the near-7-footer first noticed a problem with his right hip, and underwent surgery after playing the Citi Open ATP event in Washington, D.C.
“It was the easiest surgery, and it improved my tennis,” Opelka said. “I can sit further into my leg. He (the surgeon) dug out a tumorous growth and re-shaped my hip a little bit.”
Opelka spent about six months recovering from the hip procedure, but was scheduled to return to the ATP Tour in February, 2023.
Jean-Yves Aubone, who was returning to be Opelka’s traveling coach, said he was at a friend’s wedding when his phone buzzed.
“Reilly called and said ‘Dude, I can’t hit a ball right now, my wrist in so much pain,” Aubone recalled to FlaglerLive. “And I was like, what do you mean, we’re going to Dallas in like a week. The wrist thing came out of nowhere.”
A subluxated tendon was the diagnosis, and Opelka had surgery in February. The surgeon, a woman based in New York who he declined to name, had come “highly recommended” from other athletes, Opelka said.
But immediately after the operation, Opelka knew there was a problem.
The surgery to fix the tendon “failed,” Opelka said, and his wrist became severely infected. A second surgery was needed. This time Opelka and his team wanted someone else to do it.
They saw five different surgeons, all tops in the field, and Opelka said none of them wanted to take on his case.
“They all said the same thing, that they didn’t want to be the last guy to operate on me, because that’s not a good look for them,” Opelka said, still shaking his head at the memory. “They all told me to let her go in and clean it up, because she knew exactly what she did,” her being the original surgeon.
“But the last thing I wanted to do was go back to her. But I really had no choice.”
And so about six weeks after the first surgery, Opelka went under the knife again, to repeat the wrist procedure. His surgeon cut out all the infected tissue and repeated the tendon repair. This time the surgery worked.
But during the second surgery more nerve damage occurred. Opelka was in a sling for five months.
“I couldn’t straighten my arm, couldn’t do anything with my right arm for months,” Opelka said. “And I was on so many painkillers. I couldn’t sleep, was clenching my teeth all the time.”
Then things got bad.
As his wrist was healing throughout the rest of 2023, Opelka was having nerve problems up near his clavicle, partly, he said, from being in a sling for so long.
The issue was with his first rib, and it caused Opelka to have thoracic outlet syndrome. Common and sometimes career ending in baseball players (former pitchers Matt Harvey and Stephen Strasburg suffered from it), Opelka was in agony and was getting very little blood flow from his arm to his fingers.
The three middle fingers on his right hand were constantly freezing cold, he said, no matter what he did.
And so off he went around the world seeking an answer to the rib problem. He flew to Germany. And Belgium, and Atlanta, and more cities than he could name. Nobody wanted to remove the rib, believing it to be too dangerous especially for an athlete.
“Mostly I’m just blown away by the commitment he’s had to search for answers along so many different lines and the effort he puts in,” said Opelka’s main coach, former ATP Top 20 player Jay Berger, to ATPTour.com in July. “I don’t think people realize how dedicated he is, how committed he is, and how resilient and determined he was to get back.
“He is one of the most dedicated athletes I’ve ever seen or been around.”
“I was going to just quit and live my life pretty normally, except for my fingers constantly being cold,” Opelka said.
As of this past May, Opelka was nearing the end of his hope rope, and seriously thought his career was over. Unlike many tennis players who are 24-7 focused on their sport, that’s never been the former Indian Trails Middle School student. He’s passionate about fashion, art (he’s always wearing hats adorned with Antwerp’s Tim Van Laere gallery), and other sports.
Finally, Opelka was referred to Dr. Mark Lindsay, a Las Vegas-based doctor who’d worked wonders for Golden Knights hockey star Jack Eichel.
Lindsay met with Opelka during the Stanley Cup playoffs and explained a procedure that would move the rib away from the nerve and the joint, freeing the rib up.
Staying at Eichel’s house before and after the operation, Opelka decided to have it. He immediately felt relief.
“It was an enormous difference right away,” Opelka said. “The temperature and the pain changed dramatically.”
Finally, Opelka could hit tennis balls again without too much pain, hitting with local juniors near his Palm Beach home as he tried to gain strength again.
He also helped his hometown tennis club a bit. The Palm Coast Tennis Center, where Opelka trained as a child under the legendary Tom Gullikson, now known as the Southern Recreation Center, has added a new clubhouse, pickleball courts, and is in the midst of adding new tennis courts–and more pickleball courts.
“I’m never happy about pickleball courts,” said Opelka, who like many in the sport have been critical of the new craze. Then with a laugh he added “but you know, Palm Coast, older demographic, different crowd, I get why they’d add pickleball courts.”
The USTA also helped with a grant to assist the Tennis Center, and Opelka said it “felt good to give back.”
One idea he had that Palm Coast rebuffed, he said, was naming the Center or parts of it after Gullikson.
“He was so helpful to me as a kid; hopefully they’ll reconsider someday,” Opelka said.
Finally free of pain, Opelka began playing tournaments again in July, competing in Newport, R.I., Atlanta and Cincinnati events. His ranking had fallen into the high triple digits, so he’s used wild cards and “protected rankings,” given to top players who have been hurt for long stretches, to get into events.
He’s had some “speed bumps” along the way, trying to shake off two years of rust.
“The big thing now is just to finish matches, finish tournaments and see how his body reacts,” Aubone said. “If we do that, we’re going to get better. If he can just stay healthy, we’ll be fine.”
“I’m just looking forward to being able to train, and have a great few months of playing and not being in constant pain,” Opelka said. “I’m embracing all of this right now, because it was all gone for so long.”
–Michael J. Lewis for FlaglerLive.
Steve says
Keep pushing. Injuries happen. It’s show time for you. Give it all while you can. Good Luck