LONDON – Veteran French tennis player Jeremy Chardy recently announced that he is suspending his season, effective immediately, due to adverse reactions he says he is experiencing after being vaccinated against COVID-19, and notes that he now regrets getting the jab due to how it has impacted his career.
Chardy, who has ranked as high as No. 25 in the world as a professional, had been inoculated against COVID-19 between the Tokyo Olympics and U.S. Open despite vaccination not being required by tennis officials.
However, Chardy, 34, said in a statement released on Tuesday that he is experiencing a “series of problems now because of the vaccine,” and that he is unable to train or play as a result.
“Since I got my vaccine, I have a problem, I have a lot of problems,” he said. “Since I had my vaccine, I have had a problem, I’ve had a series of struggles. Suddenly, I cannot train, I cannot play.”
Chardy said that whenever he makes a physical effort, he is forced to endure violent pains all over his body that did not occur before he received the jab; so far he said that he has seen two doctors and has undergone several tests, but did not reveal the results.
Due to his inability to properly train or play, Chardy made the difficult decision to end his tennis season, with hopes that he will be able to resume competition next year, although he said that he is aware that his advancing age will soon draw his career to a close.
“I prefer to take more time to take care of myself and be sure that in the future I will not have any problem rather than trying to get back on the court as quickly as possible and find myself still having health problems,” he said. “I turn 35 in February so for the moment I’m maybe a little bit negative, but this is the first time the idea that next season might be my last has crossed my mind. I’m thinking about it…it’s difficult because I was enjoying myself and I wanted to play longer.”
Chardy admitted that while he regretted getting the vaccine, he could not have known that “this would happen to him.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Chardy said. “The problem is that we have no hindsight on the vaccine. There are people who had similar [adverse reactions], but the durations [of the problems] were really different”.