The first week of the new tennis season is not a week old and already Roger Federer, Serena Williams and Kim Clijsters have pulled out of tournaments in Qatar and Brisbane.
Federer, who is rarely injured, is complaining of a bad back; Williams twisted her ankle in Brisbane; and Clijsters followed her onto the sideline with a hip problem.
As far as we know, Rafael Nadal is not suffering physically, despite recent shoulder problems. But he did suffer a surprisingly decisive setback in his preparations for the Australian Open in the semifinals of the ATP event in Qatar, where he lost 6-3, 6-4 to an in-form Gael Monfils.
However, with the Australian Open beginning a week from Sunday, we must remember that players are nursing their bodies with particular care — or should be. Federer, almost certainly, is just being cautious with his back, although Serena’s ankle twist constitutes a real injury and her participation in Melbourne is far from certain.
All this throws the spotlight back on to two of the hottest topics for players and tour officials — injuries and the brevity of the offseason. Players are able, within certain limitations, to map out their schedules so as to give themselves rest periods during the year. But Kieron Vorster, who is in charge of training for the Qatar Tennis Federation, has been tweeting about what he considers another, more worrisome, problem.
“Some of the fitness trainers on the tour do not know what they are doing,” said Vorster, who spent years on the circuit as personal trainer to Tim Henman and Wayne Ferreira. “From what I have observed this week, it is frightening how gullible some players are. They are putting their careers in jeopardy.”
Vorster believes they are not giving themselves enough time to recover from a long season and are being allowed, or even encouraged, to play while still banged up.
For a broader perspective, I spoke with Bill Norris, the world’s most experienced tennis trainer who worked the ATP tour from the days of Rod Laver all the way through to Federer and Nadal.
“It’s always a fine line in judging whether to send a player out on court if he or she is at risk,” said Norris, who now has a private practice looking after young players from the Evert Academy near his home in Boca Raton, Fla. “You always have to keep in mind that one false movement can end a player’s career. On the other hand, if injury problems get into a player’s mind and become exaggerated you would only ever get them on court once a week.”
Having been in the trenches for so long, Norris is well aware of the pressure that can be exerted on players by tournament directors who have invested huge sums of money in their event and agents who need their clients out in the public eye.
“I have seen the situation abused so much over the years,” Norris admitted. “But again there are so many factors to evaluate. One is the player’s age. I am continually telling parents and coaches of the teenagers I am looking after now to take it easy on young bodies and not overwork them. On the other side of the coin, bodies become used to the workload and develop greater flexibility as a result. John McEnroe was a great example of that. He is probably more flexible in his body now than he was as a teenager.”
As Norris says, there is no cookbook on this, no magic recipe.
Vorster can expect some fierce push-back from trainers who are out on the tour week after week, considering he is not. But he is a well-respected practitioner of the art of looking after bodies being tested by the demands of what is now, without question, one of the most punishing professional sports in the world.
Norris and I concur that one of the biggest culprits is the courts on which so much of the tour is played. The various types of hard court being used right now are shortening players’ careers because joints and ligaments cannot stand the incessant pounding they receive when the likes of Nadal, Monfils or David Ferrer get into their muscle-stretching 15-to-20 stroke rallies. Patrick McEnroe, director of player development at the USTA, has already moved the Orange Bowl for juniors back on to clay, and it is time some senior events on the ATP tour started thinking along the same lines.
Tennis is currently blessed with some fantastically talented and well-loved superstars. But it is no use if they cannot play.
