LIMBERING UP: After sitting out most of 2009 because of assorted injuries, Carlos Moya had his first serious practice session in a while at the SDAT Stadium, the venue of the Chennai Open, on Thursday.

Chennai: The media contingent that seemed to time its ebbs around Carlos Moya’s hour-long evening appearance on court had to make do without such staple sustenance as gossip as the Spaniard’s press team blanked questions about his retirement.

The Mallorcan, here for the Chennai Open that gets underway on January 4, said that he was “highly motivated” and that “he was happy to be competing again.”

The reasons for the Spaniard’s choice of the Chennai Open as the launch-pad for his latest comeback bid are not too difficult to fathom. The event has seen Moya take the trophy home twice — in 2004 and 2005. “I have great memories associated with Chennai and it is a perfect place for me to start over,” he said.

Except for brief spells, Moya has been laid low with injuries to his back and hip for the large parts of this decade. The world of possibility that opened up as he won Roland Garros in 1998, and when he displaced Pete Sampras to be the World No.1 the following year was shut on him when he suffered a stress fracture to his lower back soon after.

Moya calls his first injury break to be the most painful phase of his career. “When you are older, you expect it. You get injured sooner or later. When you are 22, when you are so close to being No.1, injuries are much harder to deal with,” he said.

A wild-card entrant for this edition, Moya starts off on his first serious session of practice in a while. Under the supervision of Jose Clavet, who has been working with Moya for the last couple of months, the 33-year old goes through a succession of drills with James Ward.

The exchanges are abridged of excess, and given Moya’s injury record, it is not surprising that he is not capering about. After the first round of hitting, the pair enjoys an ingenious session of curling with the errant tennis balls, with the sidelines for borders. Soon, they start afresh.

Moya serves wide and charges to the net only to find a Ward return skewering him on the move. Clavet sticks his lip out in disapproval. The next serve kicks up and Ward’s return is feeble. Moya rushes his shot and dumps it into the net. He doesn’t have to look at Clavet to know he did poorly on that point.

“We do not have a specific target in mind in terms of ranking,” says Clavet. “If he plays the way he knows to, the results will come in.”

The lights come on and the practice session almost draws to a close. The evening breeze and the full, pale moon only serve as reminders, by converse, of the heat and the humidity that he will have to contend with once the tournament begins.

Moya forces Ward out wide and begets a desperate lunge that sends the ball to a corner that Moya does not expect it to go to. Shoes screeching, Moya darts across the court. And the shot comes together with familiar ease. Knees bent, torso twisted, shoulders pivoted, a cross-court winner sails past the stationary Ward.

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