Players may be risking health by popping pain pills

FOR all the talk of banned performance-enhancing drugs in sport, mundane over- the- counter anti-inflammatory pain medications may be more of an issue on the tennis Tour, according to numerous players.

Indeed, players competing at the US Open could be risking their long-term health by playing through pain to achieve their goals.

In the final Grand Slam event of the year, when the likes of Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams are battling injuries, many are likely to popping pills to push their aching bodies one more time.

“You would be surprised how many anti-inflammatories I take,” said 15th-ranked Richard Gasquet, a Frenchman who has suffered numerous injuries during his career.

“I do it a lot. Not during practice, but before matches.

It’s not something I would choose to do, but sometimes I have no choice.

“It’s nothing crazy to take anti-inflammatories. I imagine all the players are doing it. I know a lot of football players, they do it a lot.”

Taking pain medication, before and after matches, has become the norm as the boundaries of physical possibility continue to expand.

But taking too much is believed to actually slow down the recovery process after injury and taking them too regularly can cause longterm harm, some experts say.

“With respect to non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, persons should take as little as possible for the shortest duration possible,” Dr Eric Matteson, a consultant in the Division of Rheumatology at the Mayo Clinic, said by email.

“The concerns with prolonged use are risks of developing kidney failure and hypertension, as well as stomach ulcers.” Goran Ivanisevic said taking anti-inflammatories was a necessary evil.

“When I won Wimbledon (in 2001), I was smashing them,” he said.

“I took them like candies. After a while I didn’t even feel it, it didn’t do me any good. But when you have a chance, in my case, to win Wimbledon, you take whatever, you don’t care.

“I hated pain so if the doctor said ‘take two’ I’d take five. But in the end I had shoulder surgery. The pain was so big that pain killers didn’t work so I had to have surgery.

“Pain-killers are actually the best thing you can take, it just prevents (pain) for that moment, for a week or two, but hopefully something worse doesn’t happen and then you are in more trouble.”

The women’s Tour, the WTA, distributes detailed information to its players warning them of the dangers of over-use, while the men’s Tour, the ATP, says its physicians only prescribe anti-inflammatories “when indicated for the treatment of an injury”.