Tennis injuries

Tennis players like all elite athletes can succumb to illness and injury more frequently than the rest of us. This is because they can lower their immune system by over-training and when it comes to injuries they use their muscles, joints and ligaments so much more then the rest of us.

They also have to contend with the surface of the court causing many twisted ankles.
Most players play through injuries almost all the time. The only player who never had an injury was Todd Woodbridge and Australian doubles specialist.


Alicia Molik's injury was unusual, but many players, though they will play through a virus can be so ill that they have to stop playing. This happened to Justine Henin-Hardenne in the final of the Australian Open 2006. She had been taking anti-inflammatories to combat a shoulder injury and those anti-inflammatories caused extreme pain in the stomach.
Many succumb to heat stroke too as happens often at the Australian Open held in very hot weather sometimes.
Cramp too is not technically an injury and used to be one which could not be treated during a game, but now can be. Baghdatis suffered obvious cramp in the final of the Australian Open 2006, but commentators thought this was not from lack of condition, but nerves. Many players use cramp as a reason to have a massage too.
The worst injuries for tennis players are knee reconstructions. Australia's once brilliant player Philippoussis has had 3 of those. Each time players who have these reconstruction of joints are out of the game for months.
Other common joint injuries are shoulders, wrists and ankles. Kim Klijsters was out for almost a year with a wrist injury.
There are countless muscle injuries also.
Other unique things can happen on the court like James Blake running slap bang into the umpires chair. That injury took him out of the game for some time.

Other big tennis events for women and men

Other major events are the Olympics, the Davis Cup (for men) and the Federation Cup (for women)
In all of these events the players are playing for their country.


* American,
* Euro-African, and
* Asia-Pacific.

Within each zone countries play each other to advance to the World Group.

The World Group consists of the 16 top countries which compete in a single-elimination draw to determine the Cup winner. Around September, each of the 8 first round losers play the top 8 finishers in the Zone competitions in a "relegation tie." The winner of each tie advances to the World Group for the next year, while the loser is relegated to Zone competition.

Australia has dominated the Davis Cup in the past and it is a very important event for the players. But Australia is now out of the world group because we do not have top players anymore.
Australia has won the Cup 28 times as of 2004. American has won it 31 times.

The Federation Cup is for women. The first Cup was played in 1963. America won that year.
The format is very similar to the Davis Cup with zones and world groups. This year in September the final is between Russia and France. Russia won. Read about the 2005 final . The USA and Australia have won most of the finals in the past but Russia is an up and coming team with many great Russian woman players to choose from.

For men there is also the Masters Cup at the end of each year, which is a competition between the best ranked 8 players.

For women it is the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour Championships final.

The grand slams in tennis

There are four grand slams a year for tennis players.
Grand slams involve about 128 players in singles for both men and women.
No other events are held at that time.
Matches for men are the best of 5 sets and for women the best of 3 sets.
Many of the other tournaments are only the best of 3 sets for the men.

The first grand slam of the year is in Melbourne, Australia around mid January, our summer. The court has a rebound ace surface. It is called the Australian Open. The tournament was first played in 1905 as The Australasian Championships, became the Australian Championships in 1927 and the Australian Open in 1969. Since 1905, The Championships have been staged at six different venues as follows: Melbourne [46 times], Sydney [17 times] Adelaide [14 times], Brisbane [eight times], Perth [three times] and New Zealand [twice] in 1906 & 1912. In 1972, it was decided to stage the Tournament in the one city each year, as opposed to visiting various states across the nation, and the Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club was selected due to Melbourne attracting the biggest patronage. Until 1987 it used to be on grass during December and I spent many a match at courtside at Kooyong before it was moved to Melbourne Park. As tennis became more popular and commercial, the Kooyong court became too small. The event moved to Melbourne Park and is now in January. It is the only Grand Slam event where the stadium has a roof so it can be shut if it rains or the temperatures get too high. It is played on a slow rebound ace surface.
Australian Open 2006


The French Open dates back to 1891 and has been played on clay at Roland Garros since 1921. It is in late May to early June. The ball bounces higher on this sort of court and suits baseline players. Rallies can be very long. The player can reach further because of the ability to slide.

Wimbledon is next on the calendar and is held in late June to early July, making it difficult for players to adjust to grass after clay in a short time. It has been held since 1877. Winning Wimbledon is considered the pinnacle of tennis. The surface is fast and the ball bounces low and unevenly so it suits serve volleyers, or used to, as this form of the game is disappearing.

The US Open is held at Flushing Meadows, Queens,NY in early September and has been played there since 1978. Before that it was in Rhode Island. It can be very noisy being just near La Guardia airport. It can also be very hot and very humid. The surface is a hard court made of Decoturf. It is considered the second most important tournament to win.