Courtney Lock out For Six months

Howard Musonza

Zimbabwe Davis Cup player Courtney Lock will be out of action for six months after a successful hip surgery.

The 23-year-old went under the knife in South Africa last week and is now on a recovery path.

“I had a double impingement in both of my hips as well as a tear in my labrum just due to overuse and also slipped growth plate when I was very young,” said Lock in an interview with ZTN.

“I felt (pain) and I was kind of a freak when I started to feel the pain and consulted with a couple of specialist, medical practitioners and after a lot MRIs and X-rays they said the best thing would be to have arthroscopic surgery.

“It’s a keyhole surgery, where they go in and they shave down the bone and repair the tear so I had that done in both of my hips and I was told that it’s the best thing for my career in the long term.”

Lock expects to be fully fit for Zimbabwe’s World Group II Davis Cup tie against China which has been re-scheduled for March/ September 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The recovery period is usually four to six months, so they say after three and a half to four months you are practising and then competing anyway between four and a half to six months.

“That puts me to about mid-January so I am very fortunate in that sense where I won’t miss too much and I will be able to start the 2021 season.

Lock, who plays doubles with his older brother Ben, also paid tribute to American greats Bob and Mike Bryan, who retired from the game last week.

The Bryan brothers are the most successful doubles team in tennis history with 16 Grand Slams, 110 tour titles, two Olympic medals (gold at London 2012 and Bronze at Beijing 2008) and were part of the USA Davis Cup-winning team in 2007.

“The Bryan Brothers were incredible people, role models, tennis players I think they inspired a lot of people especially in the game of doubles and for my brother and I being brothers in tennis, playing professional tennis we idolise them a lot and they give us a lot of inspiration and we definitely looked up to them,” said Lock who also mentioned the influence of Zimbabwe legends Byron and Wayne Black.

“Obviously Wayne and Byron that was a little closer to home, just two great sets of incredible brothers who have done incredible things on the court,” he said.