Humphrey CarterPalma12/01/2019 21:34
TW

No fans of sports like to see a player break down in tears in front of the world media and announce that his or her future is in serious doubt, but sadly that is what we had to watch yesterday when Andy Murray put his cards on the table and admitted that his hip injury is quite likely to bring about an early end to his career; it could be as early as Monday.

Unfortunately for Murray, despite having tried everything, he has been unable to overcome his injury like Nadal, Djokovic and Federer have, although they pick and choose their tournaments now in order to avoid further injury setbacks and to look after their bodies and minds.

Two years ago, the great Henri Leconte told me in an interview that there was too much tennis being played on the circuit and this is having two consequences. The first being that more players are getting injured and spectators at tournaments are dropping. Tennis players have hardly any time off when they play the entire circuit and for those looking to break into the top 20, that is what they have to do, despite the risks they are putting their bodies and potential careers through.

I think Andy Murray’s predicament should come as a lesson to tennis organisations and that the number of tournaments should be reduced. If they are not competing, they are training, they never stop and it applies to most sports today. How often are we talking about injuries in elite sports?