“Looking back, that was the time when I needed to take a few weeks off, but instead, I played every week, and my body wasn’t prepared for it.”

Chakvetadze’s fragile physique began to buckle under the strain of the tour. At the start of 2010, she began having the back problems that ultimately ended her career. A year later, a virus caused her to faint on the court in the United Arab Emirates.

After multiple comebacks, she made the painful decision to end her career after being semiretired in 2012. Her decision was not without a few regrets.

“If I could turn back the clock, I would try to listen to my body more,” she said. “I would not push myself so hard. When I was out for seven months in 2011, I wanted to practice more and become a better player. But when you have a break, you have to take it easy and start slow again. I was maybe rushing too much, and I wasn’t ready for all the training I was putting myself through.”

This season, many players have spoken about how they push themselves through the pain to stay on top. Marion Bartoli decided she could no longer endure it and retired about a month after becoming the Wimbledon champion.

“I was surprised,” Chakvetadze said of Bartoli’s decision. “But I understand because she’s a hard worker, she practiced so hard all the time and she was playing a lot of tournaments, almost every week for a few years.”

With Maria Sharapova also struggling with a shoulder injury, there has been plenty of focus on how the increase in power in the women’s game is making players more prone to injury. But Chakvetadze said the main problem was the decision-making of the athletes themselves.