If Novak Djokovic’s shoulder injury came as a shocker to you, it should not have. In fact, if there was any real surprise at all here, it is that he didn’t wear down a few months ago.
The man has been going full bore with minimal time off since the late stages of the 2010 season, or have you forgotten that Nole’s last year didn’t end until the second week of December, which left him about one week, maybe 10 days, to put down the rackets, spend some time with his girl friend and just indulge himself.
This is no kind of off-season for any professional athlete.
Not only was the ATP World Tour championships played in late November, but Djoko had a Davis Cup final against France the first week in December. Before the third week of December was over, it was time to get ready for 2011.
You know the essential details of the rest. He had won all but one match before he retired last week in the Cincinnati final against Andy Murray. That means not only had he played 11 tournaments in fourteen weeks, but went deep into the draw of every one — 59 matches in all.
There is good news, however. The injury is muscular and time off and extensive daily therapy should leave him ready to boogie at the U.S. Open next week.
In all likelihood, the foundation of this injury has been percolating for some time and was exacerbated by the end of the clay court season and the beginning of a prolonged series of fast-court events — Wimbledon, Montreal and Cincinnati.
Why are grass and hardcourts culprits?
“Because these players are hitting bigger serves. On clay courts you can’t ace as much, so the average velocity of the serve is less,” explained Dr. Ben Kibler of Lexington, Ky., who is among the most important physicians in the United States studying and lecturing on tennis injuries.
Suddenly, the big hitters are hitting even bigger and, after seven months of wear and tear on the shoulder from hitting overhead strokes (serves and smashes), the injuries mount up.
This problem is serious enough that Dr. Kibler and several other physicians will convene at the U.S. Open to further discuss the problem. “I’m on the USTA sports science committee,” said Kibler. “And we want to look at statistics and injury rates.”
One of the questions Kibler wants answered: “Are there more injuries since the advent of the U.S. Open Series, that group of a dozen lead-up tournaments to the Open which are all on hardcourts? Are there more withdrawals or is this just a bad streak?
If the answers are yes, there are more injuries, then people in the sports science and training fields will be contemplating more conditioning programs “to see if there are interventions we can do that make sense.”
It’s a complicated problem and Kibler knows it. “I’ve always been an advocate of modifying the season in some ways and my experience from baseball (medicine) is that there is time you need to take off. It may be we have to do the same in tennis,” he said.
But how do you convince players who are fighting weekly for ranking points that get them directly into tournaments or fighting for prize money that allow them to afford a traveling coach to get off the tournament trail for a few weeks?
At least the elite players are easier to convince of the need for rest, and you now see virtually no top players, particularly on the men’s side, playing the week before a Grand Slam.
Djokovic, Rafa Nadal, Roger Federer, Andy Murray . . . all took extensive time off after Wimbledon and signed to play only the two ATP 1000s (at Montreal and Cincinnati) before the Open. And even that has not helped Djokovic’s shoulder.
In medical terms, it’s all about “the load” one places on the serving shoulder and Kibler knew early on in the Cincy tournament that Djokovic was in trouble.
“Last Saturday, I noticed he was not turning his body because he didn’t want the shoulder to hurt. He wasn’t cocking the shoulder. He looked awkward.” Kibler then went on to point out that Djokovic isn’t the only top player to withdraw.
Tomas Berdych and Aggie Radwanska from the WTA Tour also withdrew at Cincinnati. “Last year, Samantha Stosur pulled out,” Kibler recalled.
Among his other research duties, Kibler is working with the WTA to do an analysis of the women’s tour injuries. He’s been at this sports injury problem for years and there has been progress made.
“In some ways, yes,” he said. “In some ways, no. In terms of identifying injury mechanisms and talking about how to approach them, yes. There is progress. But have we decreased the number of injuries? No.” The reason, he says, is the “change in the physicality” of the game and the frequency of play.
How are he and other sports physicians getting their knowledge into the hands of tour players? “For one thing, the USTA sports science committee has regular meetings and we put out brochures to coaches. The coaches have regular meetings. There’s a newsletter. There the society of medical organizations which meets once or twice a year at tournaments and physical therapists come to those meetings. We’re looking at different body parts in the serve motion in our WTA study, showing players a video and giving them a package of exercises we recommend.”
But in the final analysis, it all comes down to the players. Djokovic probably did a good job of being aware of the load he was putting on his shoulder as the season progressed and he certainly adjusted his schedule accordingly.
Yet even with all his attention, there was nothing he could do about the wear-down factor on his arm, short of just getting off the tournament trail. And if he did that, he’d lose his edge going into the bigger events.
It’s like Kibler says. It’s complicated.