Men on the verge of breakdown
Painful exits by top players highlight physical grind that hits hard at age 30
WIMBLEDON, ENGLAND— The doomsday brigade will claim this is the end of the Big Four.
Dwindled down to one — an evergreen Roger Federer.
Rafael Nadal got his ticket punched in the round of 16. Andy Murray sloped out of the quarters after basically playing on one leg, plagued by a degenerating hip condition and using his racquet as a crutch. Novak Djokovic retired in his put-over Wednesday engagement because of a throbbing elbow, becoming the 10th player to pull out of Wimbledon 2017 mid-match through injury.
That’s taken much of the sheen off this tournament, heralded as an alignment of vintage stars, all the marquee names vying for glory.
But the grind of the game has caught up with its most stalwart practitioners so that even a relatively young man such as 30-year-old Murray looked like a decrepit pensioner as he hobbled off the court.
Although there’s nobody slamming you into the boards or sliding into second cleats first, tennis is a gruelling non-contact sport. Men’s matches routinely go three, four hours and tournament play is an every-other-day marathon.
The human body isn’t designed for such relentless demands. That’s a fact most athletes are loath to concede. The season moves from clay to grass to hard court, week after week after week. Slams are the jewel events but players on tour are leery of taking a pass on the competition schedule because no-shows affect their world rankings — and their bank accounts. The Williams sisters were harshly criticized for skipping many tour gigs and focusing on majors.
We are now seeing, however, the consequences of too much play squished into too little time.
Murray, who consulted with his medical posse on Thursday, might very well be forced to undergo the surgery he’s so desperately trying to avoid. Ditto Djokovic, who revealed that he’s been contending with his elbow issue for 18 months. Nadal is physically fine at the moment but has a long history of injuries and, prior to his uplifting “comeback” this season — collecting a 10th French Open title, reaching the Australian final (losing to Federer in five sets — he’d been absent for chunks of 2016, shutting himself down last October.
The source of Federer’s knee woes may have been a freak wrenching as he bathed his kids, but the arthroscopic knee surgery which ensued sidelined him for two months early last year and he clearly came back too soon, crumbling on the court in the ’16 semifinal against Canada’s Milos Raonic. Painful lesson learned. Federer — he turns 36 in a few weeks — missed the second half of the season last year and skipped the clay season this year. Rest clearly did him a world of wonders, looking rejuvenated and in peak form at SW19.
Federer was compelled to hold up. Too many of his cohort rivals apparently aren’t receiving — or they’re ignoring — proper advice about easing up and being kinder to their bodies. All the massages and ice baths and injections in the world won’t ultimately forestall their fate. They may in fact be counter-productive, creating the illusion of healed ailments, while tendons and bones and sinews continue ticking towards meltdown. A misplaced foot, a lunge and swish of the racquet and boom, down goes Brown.
Why do they act so surprised?
In tennis at least, the slippery side of 30 appears the point of physiological reckoning.
Murray and Djokovic have obviously pushed their bodies too far, the former with a tortuous ’16 schedule to reach and maintain his No. 1 ranking; the latter frantically attempting to reassert himself atop the elite heap.
The upshot now for Murray — still No.1, turns out, because of Djokovic’s withdrawal — is possibly missing the U.S. Open, should he relent and go under the scalpel. While still keeping the details of his hip problem a secret — speculations range from hip-flexor strain to osteoarthritis, because Murray has said the issue is chronic and long-career athletes are susceptible to the condition — has begun to speak aloud about his limited options.
“As you get older, things are a bit tougher to manage than they are when you’re younger. There’s more wear and tear.’’
Yet still he whistles past the graveyard of his athletic mortality.
“I feel like I’ve done all the right stuff, but I’ll try to do more, try to get myself in better shape. Hopefully I’ll come through the other side of it a better player, a better athlete.
“I knew I wasn’t going to do any major damage by playing. I wanted, if possible, to find a way at the end.”
And, Murray claims, he honestly didn’t care about protecting his No. 1-ness.
“I haven’t played well enough this year to stay there for much longer. If it doesn’t happen by the end of this tournament, it will happen by the end of the U.S. Open.”
Well, should he get there. Because it might be more prudent to shut everything down now. Murray has already undergone a back operation.
Djokovic was also staring reality in the face following his aborted encounter Wednesday against Tomas Berdych.
“Nobody was very clear in what needs to be done,” he said of the medical specialists around him and the treatments undergone on his right elbow. “As long as it kind of comes and goes, it’s fine. But adding up, maybe it worked for seven, eight, 10 months, but now the (last) seven months is not working that great. Obviously it’s adding up more and more.’’
It would certainly account for the Serb’s subpar play — hurts most when he’s serving and hitting forehands — since arriving in Wimbledon last summer as defending champion, with a dozen Grand Slam titles.
Now he’s pondering recuperative time off, whether surgery is required or not.
“The more I play, the worse it gets. I guess the break is something that I will have to consider right now.’’
He admitted: “I haven’t felt this much pain ever since I’ve had this injury. So it’s not a good sign.’’
Djokovic said of himself and Murray, who overhauled him at No.1: “We both had a very long, very tough year, a lot of matches, a lot of emotions, a lot of things in play. Our bodies have taken a lot physically. At a certain stage of your career, you’re going to experience these kind of things.
“Professional tennis is getting very physical in the last couple of years. It’s not easy to play on the highest level throughout the entire season, then be able to do that over and over again every season, and then stay healthy.”
The U.S. Open is less than seven weeks away.
As if he needed to remind himself, Djokovic added: “At the end of the day, we’re all humans.”