Parrizas Diaz defies doctors orders to reap rewards of second career
If Nuria Parrizas Diaz had listened to doctors, she certainly wouldn’t be playing professional tennis now.
Five years ago, aged just 24, the Spaniard was advised by medical professionals to hang up her racket for good after suffering a serious shoulder injury that showed no sign of standing up to the rigours of the professional game.
Last week, Parrizas Diaz reached the final round of the Wimbledon qualifying draw in just her second professional appearance on grass. It is the latest milestone in a season that has seen her win four titles on the ITF World Tennis Tour and assume a place in the Top 150 for the first time.
Hers is a remarkable story of defiance and resilience and one that deserves a fairly-tale ending. While a first Grand Slam main draw appearance was not to be after a 3-6 6-3 6-2 defeat to qualifying top seed Maria Camila Osorio Serrano, there were plenty more positives for the Spaniard to take from Roehampton.
Perhaps most surprising is that 29-year-old Parrizas Diaz has suffered no lasting effects from the ‘career-ending’ injury that thwarted her ascent five years ago. No ongoing management or regular trips to the physio. One year away from the game between July 2015 and September 2016 has quite simply done the trick. Her racket-wielding arm is good as new.
“They told me I can’t play any more so I stopped for one year, but after I returned [to the court], I didn’t feel nothing more,” she said. “Now, it’s perfect.
“I haven’t changed anything. Nothing. They told me this – said it’s not possible to play anymore. I said ‘Okay, I’ll stop’. So I did. I was working, studying, all this, but finally I returned and never felt any more pain there. Nothing. It’s unbelievable - another opportunity, you know? And now look: I’m playing here!”
Parrizas Diaz’s enthusiasm about simply being on court appears to be propelling her success. That, plus a good bit of hard graft and the fact that she is now travelling with a full-time coach, her boyfriend, Jose Antonio Sanchez-De Luna, himself a former Top-300 player.
“I’m working so, so hard,” admits Parrizas Diaz. “It’s the first time I’ve travelled with a coach. Before I only travelled alone, but now we’re working full-time for these results. We’re going week by week, but we will see. I want to try for more. Top 100 next.”
That goal hardly seems beyond the realms of possibility given her form in 2021. Parrizas Diaz won three titles in a row on the ITF World Tennis Tour through February, when she collected back-to-back wins at W25 Potchefstroom before a further triumph on home soil in Manacor. She reached her first WTA quarter-final in Bogota in April, and added a fourth ITF title for the year at W25 Grado following a morale-boosting display at Roland Garros, where she also fell in the final round of qualifying.
“For me, it was the first time I won two matches in a row [in Grand Slam qualifying],” she reflected on her run in Paris. “I had a lot of things in my head for the last match, and for this reason I don’t play good. I felt too much pressure. But now I’m changing this – taking it match my match.”
Parrizas Diaz has every reason to savour each match. Each moment. After all, she shouldn’t, in theory, be playing at all.