On April 14, 2019, WNBA superstar Breanna Stewart ruptured her Achilles while competing for a Russian team, Dynamo Kursk, in the EuroLeague Championship League. Exactly one year later, she dropped by CBS Sports Radio to discuss her rehab and recovery.
“The beginning was tough, but it kind of gave me a greater appreciation for life,” Stewart said on After Hours with Amy Lawrence. “I couldn’t walk until July. Once I was able to walk again, then I was like, ‘Okay, I do miss basketball, but I’m happy I can walk and function a little bit on my own.’”
Stewart, who couldn’t play basketball for seven months, said she is back to full health.
“I think I can continue to always get stronger, but I was overseas in Russia for the past few months, and I got to the point where I was playing with no minutes restriction or anything like that,” she said. “But it’s weird. Once I started playing, now for another reason I’m not able to play again.”
That reason, of course, is the coronavirus. Stewart was in Russia when the virus started to take hold in the United States.
“Things overseas happened really quickly,” she said. “It was probably the second week in March and we were supposed to play one of my teammates on the Storm – she plays for a French club – and the day before they said they weren’t coming because their government was concerned about coming to Russia and trying to come back. Then news broke [that] the NBA was suspended, and then the travel ban was put in place. It just seemed like every day there was something else that was happening, and then by the next week I was on my way home.”
Stewart, 25, won four national titles at Connecticut and was a three-time NCAA Player of the Year. The No. 1 pick in 2016, she is thankful for her health and that she was able to return to the game she loves.
“It was great to get back on the court,” she said. “It seemed like it took forever . . . but it felt great. I was able to [play] with USA Basketball, playing against UConn, which was kind of a cool game and brought things full circle. But I still had a long ways to go getting comfortable. As much as you practice and rehab, it’s hard to make things game-like until you actually are able to play.”