Newly-crowned China Open champion James Willstrop entered hospital yesterday for a hip operation with his summer mission accomplished.
The world no.7 from Yorkshire wanted to experience a home Commonwealth Games and a first PSA Tour event in China before having his damaged hip repaired – and he achieved both with flying colours.
First, the 31-year-old carried off a singles silver and men’s doubles bronze from the Glasgow Games, and then he bounced back from a first-round loss at the Hong Kong Open by winning the inaugural China Open in Shanghai.
“I aimed for the Commonwealth Games and the Far East, and I’ve done that,” he said. “I couldn’t be more pleased – I loved every minute. I could have gone and had the hip sorted immediately, but what I did was a good move.
“Now it’s fingers crossed! But the surgeon is the best and a lovely guy – very, very supportive – and I’ve got a brilliant physio. I come out of hospital the day afterwards and then it’s a long old process after that – we will know more after the operation.
“It depends on which procedure I undergo – he makes a call when he goes in. The first is a cam lesion, where the bone locks on bone and is catching on my hip. That was where the pain came.
“When they did the scan, they also found substantial cartilage damage, so he will look at the whole hip after shaving the cam lesion and make a call then.
“With the first procedure, you’re looking at eight to nine weeks out, but with the second 12 to 14. I’m not going to rush it, though.”
With facing a long period on the sidelines, Willstrop was delighted to be able to sign off from the PSA Tour in style by beating England team-mate Peter Barker 3/2 in an exciting final in Shanghai.
“I was thrilled because it was a strong field,” he said. “To come through that was great. The final was excellent as well. It was a fight, so it was very, very pleasing to win it.”
The former world no.1 was not concerned that it had been 18 months since his previous Tour title at the 2013 Canary Wharf Classic.
“No one should ever take winning big titles for granted,” he said. “It’s very, very tough to win those sort of titles.
“It was only because I’ve won them in the past that people were saying I hadn’t won for a long time, but it was good to win after not winning for a while.”