As part of the PTPA’s ongoing research and analyses on key player welfare issues, PTPA Medical Director Dr. Robby Sikka recently spearheaded a report examining the health of professional tennis players. The report sought to understand four fundamental elements around player health, including:
- The evolution of the sport of tennis, including internal and external risk factors;
- The evolution of players, including internal and external risk factors;
- The injuries occurring, including who’s getting injured, types of injury, and when and where injuries are occurring;
- And which factors can be addressed with the goal of mitigating injury risk and better protecting player health.
The data provides quantitative evidence to support the many personal experiences shared by players. Players continue to speak out about the challenges of factors like late-night matches, the length of the tour season, the length of tournaments, and ball inconsistencies across tours, both privately with the PTPA and publicly with the media.
While the report is an initial snapshot based on injury data, match data and schedule and logistics data from the last 30 years, Dr. Sikka and team’s research will continue on an ongoing basis, with the goal of having the most robust and complete data as possible in order to garner a comprehensive and clear understanding of player health needs.
Explore some of Dr. Sikka and team’s key findings below.
Web-PTPA-PlayerHealthReport-v4-1