The Injured Tour- How to solve the growing injury pile!

At the end of a grueling tennis season, Christmas rolls around, and what might the pro's on the ATP and WTA tours wish for from Santa Claus? Maybe they want a top ten ranking, maybe a maiden Grand Slam title, or maybe they even just wish to want for a main draw. Whilst all of these wishes would undoubtedly feature highly on our tennis players minds, the one thing any athlete wants at the start of a new season is to be fit, healthy, and free from injury!

Understandably, by the time the Year End Championships roll around, most players are held together by tape or strapping, after all, the tennis season starts as early as the first week of January, and for a select few, can run all the way through to November. The troubling thing as we start 2012 is that players are pulling up, rolling their ankles and jarring their backs two weeks into the season.
Less than a month into the new season, the injury/injured list looks like it would way further into the season, as bodies break down on the tough hard court surface in Australia.
Top players from both sides of the tour, are already facing question marks over their fitness, from Serena's ankle to Rafa's shoulder, to Caroline's wrist and Roger's back.

The last few Fall seasons put pressure on the tour to consider ways of protecting players from injury and burnout, but this current clump of injuries has only served to highlight what hasn't been done, and the improvements that can still be made. So, for arguments sake I was one of Stacey Allaster or Brad Drewett here's what I would be doing to prolong the players careers and solve our injury crisis:

1. Create a longer off-season: Most of the top ten men only get 1 week off before they need to be training again for Australia. Follow the example of the women and push the YEC up a couple of weeks and shorten the fall asian swing, and European indoors. This gives a couple of weeks extra off, and could make all the difference in term of better recovery and preperation.
2. Quicker balls or Quicker courts: The homogenization of tennis, has left us with mostly slow/medium courts and promoted grinding baseline rallies, at the expense of a quick net rushing game. Speed up grass and the North American hardcourts, and bring in faster balls in Australia, where players are battling both a slow court and a dead ball. Would only produce more variety, and create new match up's, what's not to like?
3. Limit entry to tournaments: I know it sounds quite dictatorial, but many players overplay consciously, to gain a higher ranking. Not all players listen to their bodies, so the tour should set reasonable boundaries. For example limit players to 25 main draw appearances, a rough season average of every other week. Players with 33 tournament schedules are asking for trouble, and the tour can do their bit to protect players from themselves!  

Although some of these methods might slightly weaken the tour financially, the benefits would far outweigh the negatives. A fresher, healthier tour would almost certainly create better more entertaining matches, and the variation in speed of ball and surface would improve what is slowly becoming a very predictable baseline hitting game.

Player pressure would be the really effective catalyst for change, but it seems few of them are interested or concerned enough to firmly voice their thoughts. Maybe the business men behind the tour have accepted injuries and depleted fields as a natural part of the latter stages of a season, but maybe the ever growing wounded list at the start of 2012 will finally highlight that the time for change has come!

Watch some videos of the walking wounded below:

DJT