About pain and other ailments

"What wound did ever heal but by degrees?" - Othello (William Shakespeare)

In sports there are injuries and there are “injuries”. There’s the kind of injury that ends your season right there right then. Tears of ligaments, ruptures of muscles, breakage of bones. Something’s destroyed and takes a while to heal and rebuild itself. A pause is necessary. But then there’s the other sort of injury, the one that’s “not so bad” and will “surely fade soon”. Unidentified pain and discomfort that goes away if you pop a couple of Advils, grit your teeth and hope for the best. Sometimes, this kind is worse than the other. Let me explain.

When a diagnosis of breakage or rupture comes your way the first moment can be devastating. For anybody who feels better when they move their bodies but particularly for professional athletes whose livelihoods depend on their exquisite health. In the case of tennis players it also comes with loss of income. There’s no team or club or federation that transfers money into your account each month. You’re your own team and club and federation and when that business is no longer operating funds run dry. And still, despite the initial desperation and fear, the rage towards your body that is supposed to be your unbreakable tool, there is light at the end of the tunnel. The end is in sight.

ACL? Six months. Stress fracture? Six to eight weeks. Tear of muscle? Three months. There’s a timeline and even in moments of darkness and doubt you can cling onto the timeline like a child clings on to their parent when brought to kindergarten for the first time. For some athletes, as we’ve seen just recently with Arthur Fils, an injury break can be even beneficial. In a fast-paced sport like tennis where the season is nearly eleven months long, it can feel like there’s no time for development. There’s seemingly only room for results. An extended pause can give the athlete the time to experiment with technique or their bodies or in Arthur’s case who shortened his forehand swing and lost five to six kilos: both.

Often times, you see a new-found mental freshness, an invigorating zest for life on tour, with tennis players who have been away for a while. Whether that’s Maria Sharapova or Serena Williams, Rafael Nadal or Arthur Fils, it’s possible to return and continue winning as if nothing ever happened.

the king of clay, the king of comebacks

The other type of injury - the one that lingers in the background, that is “manageable”, not bad enough to take a break - can destroy the entire foundation of confidence for a tennis player. We have seen it recently happen to Stefanos Tsitsipas and Paula Badosa, two prominent examples, but I’m convinced that many of your favourite players who have seemingly out of nowhere plummeted in the rankings have gone through some kind of chronic pain they never addressed because it’s not bad enough to take a break. Taylor Fritz is another one who has been playing through knee tendinitis for maybe a bit longer than needed be.

Professional sport usually rewards toughness. I say “usually” because I’m thinking of soccer players like Neymar who roll across the field as if they were hit by a bullet only to happily sprint a minute later while the opposing player has been sent off with a red card. But in real sports (like tennis LOL) you can’t afford softness. Softness is the smell of blood in a tank full of sharks. So, players grit their teeth, grimace behind their towel, pop more Advil and subsidise it with Tylenol and check hotels for ice machines like James Bond checks event locations for exits.

We are told that enduring pain is noble, that it shows character, but we fail to understand how much energy it costs to actually endure pain. How much thought and effort is wasted on taping the ankle and icing the knee and stretching the back and finding the right pillow for your neck. All those ounces of energy are lost in the ether of senselessness. Icing your knee won’t heal it. It will merely - possibly, hopefully, maybe, prayer hands emoji - ease the pain.

Managing pain as an athlete - while necessary - is the bad job that is not bad enough to quit, it’s the relationship that you’re too scared to end because Tinder is Dante’s purgatory for modern times. When in reality pulling the trigger can be freeing, too. Diagnosis: broken heart. Timeline: three to six months.

paula, one of the brightest stars on the WTA, struggling with chronic back issues

The last five months of my career I played with a chronic elbow issue. It wasn’t the reason I retired but playing with tears in my eyes from the excruciating pain for the first ten minutes of every practise session definitely didn’t help. I had Chinese creams that burned holes in my skin for warm-ups, packs and packs of ice for cool-downs, massage and physiotherapy sessions scattered throughout the day. My whole life revolved around my elbow. Until the day I retired. I was so occupied grieving my career when it ended that I completely forgot about my elbow. After all, I didn’t need it anymore.

I hit a few balls four months later just for the heck of it and because I was curious whether I still had it. I certainly didn’t have it anymore but my elbow was fine.

Ice doesn’t heal. Chinese creams don’t heal. Letting go, giving yourself a break, viewing your body with empathy, treating it gently, heals. Unfortunately, tennis players are not afforded the luxury of time so let’s keep telling them that enduring pain is noble.

2022, the year my career ended, my elbow hurt and i had under 12 % body fat

Things that make me happy

I’m in love, ladies and gentlemen. With Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald in general and with Dick Diver, one the main characters of the book, in particular. I had read Tender is the Night when I was a teenager and I always said that it was my favourite Fitzgerald novel but I don’t think I truly meant it. I mostly liked the title that was lifted from the John Keats’ poem Ode to a Nightingale. But now in my late thirties, having read and lived some more I can truly say that Tender is the Night is my favourite F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, maybe even one of my top five books of all time.

Things that make me unhappy

Love is fickle and mine is fading quickly. Not for Tender is the Night but it is waning for the man who won my heart when he so thoughtfully observed: “You’re the only girl I’ve seen for a long time that actually did look like something blooming.” Be still, my heart. But in all his glorious, volatile humanness Dick Diver is making decisions and with every decision he makes my love for him is being tested.

tender is the french riviera

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Hola and buenos dias from Madrid. I will be keeping my eyes on the ground for you for any tennis gossip worth noting and maybe even a sighting or two of a Goya. Until then I remain…

Yours truly, Andrea