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Tennis players battle heat, too
By Jon Wertheim, Sports Illustrated
Betty was hardly alone in her concern. In the men's locker room, a group of players who were crowded around a television looked deadly serious when Blake vomited and ambled around the court like the living dead. Nor was Blake the only player to suffer from laboring under such unforgiving conditions. A few hours earlier in Arthur Ashe Stadium, Iva Majoli looked woozy and later admitted feeling nauseous toward the end of her enthralling match against Martina Hingis. The previous day, Chanda Rubin wasn't so lucky. She yielded the contents of her stomach on the Grandstand Court, though she recovered to beat Adriana Gersi. "You're body can only take so much," says Blake, who took two bags of i.v. fluid after the match. "Then it stops cooperating." In the aftermath of the death of Korey Stringer at Minnesota Vikings training camp last month and of nearly a dozen other college and high football players this summer, the dangers of athletes' overexerting themselves under extreme conditions are being reexamined. Tennis is no exception. "It's at the front of everyone's minds," says ATP Tour trainer Doug Spreen, who tended to Blake Friday. "If anything good came out of [Stringer's death], it's that everyone is taking even more precaution." Tennis trainers are quick to tick off the differences between a match and a football practice. Most tennis players are clad in loose-fitting, white attire and, of course, don't toil with 15 pounds of pads nor a helmet that can leave their head feeling like a kiln. Tennis players aren't at the mercy of a demanding coach; they can rest between points; and they can adjust their style to affect the duration of points. Also, while football players come to camp to get into shape and shed six months' worth of drive-thru runs, tennis players arrive at the U.S. Open in peak condition. Still, in playing a grueling sport for upwards of five sets in late-summer heat, tennis players at the fourth Slam are high-risk candidates for heat exhaustion. There's already been a scare this year. In his first-round match against Xavier Malisse, Denmark's Ken Carlsen held a two-set lead but then became nearly delirious. "He realized that to win the match he was going to have play for another 45 minutes," says Spreen. "He knew that wasn't going to happen." (Though Spreen cannot recall it ever happening, he claims that an umpire can call off a match if he believes the player is in physical danger.) The first line of defense against heat exhaustion is drinking fluids -- "oral hydration," to use the vernacular. Spreen points out that on the men's tour, players' bodies vary. Pat Rafter, of course, is an epic perspirer who can lose three or four liters of fluid per match. Likewise, Alex O'Brien has been known to remove his shoes during changeovers and pour out accumulated perspiration. Other players, like Wayne Ferreira, can play hours and hardly sweat at all. In fact, in his first-round match Ferreira fell in five grueling sets to Vladimir Voltchkov, but he never changed shirts. Regardless, those who drink merely when they are thirsty give their bodies only 60 percent of the fluids required. So players will force themselves to drink water starting the night before their matches. (Those notorious for sweating can consume as much as five liters a day.) Both tours encourage players to wear white, wear a baseball cap and change clothes. Players are also advised to eat and continue drinking after their matches. "That's when you need the energy," says Malisse, who successfully labored for five sets against Tim Henman Saturday. "A lot of times you're pumped on the court, but when then match is over, it hits you all of a sudden and you get so exhausted you can barely walk." Above all, trainers urge players to listen to their bodies. Particularly at a big-ticket event like the U.S. Open, there is a strong temptation to fight on and ignore physical symptoms. But as Spreen says, "Heat exhaustion is serious stuff and should be taken seriously." Already too often this summer, we've seen a tragic illustration of what can happen when it's not.
Half volleysMore fallout from the L'Affaire Hewitt: The opinion of virtually every player who entered the interview room Saturday was solicited. After her straight-set win, Kim Clijsters, Hewitt's girlfriend, handled herself with poise. Andre Agassi opined that we could learn something about dignity and class from Blake, who took the high road. Disappointingly, Venus Williams claimed to have "no opinion" on the matter. ... Venus did have this to say about Agassi: "He's a Phoenix -- never say die." ... One more word about Blake: In addition to the class and honor he showed Friday dealing with Hewitt, he deserves some recognition for playing out the match to the bitter end, even though he was dog-tired. Too many players would have simply called it a day down 0-4 or 0-5. ... Elena Dementieva took out Anke Huber for the second straight year in Queens. ... One more quietly than the next, six Spaniards have glided into the third round, all of them in the same half of the draw. ... Coach David Felgate's current employer, Malisse, played his previous one, Henman. The X-Man prevailed in five gripping sets, arguably the best win of Malisse's career. ... From the Wishful Thinking Dept.: 18th-seeded Andy Roddick was listed as the 10th seed on Saturday's draw sheet.
Sports Illustrated senior writer Jon Wertheim will file daily reports from Flushing Meadows. Click here to send a question to his Tennis Mailbag.
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