Andreescu wins Canadian female athlete of the year honours

To absolutely no one’s surprise, Bianca Andreescu was named the winner today of the Bobbie Rosenfeld Award as Canadian Press’s female athlete of the year.

Earlier this month, she was named the winner of the Lou Marsh Trophy, as Canada’s top athlete of 2019–male or female.

The 19-year-old Andreescu won three WTA titles to climb to World No. 5 in the rankings in 2019.

She won Canadians’ hearts last summer when she was victorious at the Rogers Cup in Toronto and then followed that up by winning the U.S. Open in New York, beating the woman many believe to be the greatest female tennis player ever in both finals, Serena Williams.

That’s the good news.

The bad news?

Canadians getting fired up about Andreescu’s coming world tour of tennis venues will have to take a deep breath and cross their fingers.

What many forget as she keeps winning year-end awards is that Andreescu spent much of last season recovering from a shoulder injury she suffered in the spring in Miami.

Then, at the WTA Finals event in China, she had to pull out because of an injured left knee.

That injury has now caused her to withdraw from the tournament in Auckland, New Zealand, one of the lead-ups to next month’s Australian Open.

She made the announcement earlier this week.

This is the kind of thing Canadian tennis fans were worried about, though most kept their mouths shut about it.

But bubbling beneath the joy of the victories is the fear:

Is Andreescu injury prone?

She’s just 19 so it is presumptuous to answer in the affirmative.

No one knows either way at this point.

Still, it is certainly one of the things Canadians and Canadian tennis fans will be keeping a close eye on–something they would just as soon not have to find the answer to the hard way.

With files from CP, CBC, Sportsnet, WTA