Tennis Acumen had an exclusive interview with Tennys Sandgren at the Columbus, Ohio Fall Challenger. Here’s the final part of that conversation.
(photo credit: Karl Corbett)
Tennis Acumen (TA): Well, I saw two players just today, walking around with ice bags on their arms. People seem to be banged up quite a bit. I think there's a difference between playing when you are hurting versus playing when you are hurt and deciding when to stop.
Tennys Sandgren: It's HARD... It's a gray line. It's real, real gray because you don't know what the difference might be, where the line is between something that you can play through and something that's going to get worse as you go. An injury can affect your performance so much that you shouldn't even walk out there. It's tough to know.
TA: Is it then?
Tennys Sandgren: Yes, it's tough. You just have to wing it, really. Everyone's just making decisions on the fly. And I've played matches where maybe I shouldn't have played because I was too banged up to give it my all, you know, my chances weren't good walking on the court because of how banged up I was. But then there have been times where I've been super banged up, but I pulled through and I won tournaments. So, how do you know when you're too hurt to play? You've no clue, really. Everyone's winging it. Nobody knows. Nobody knows. From the sports scientist to the physios to the athletes. It is always the athlete's call, man. It's a tough one, you know? .
TA: It's hard.
Tennys Sandgren: It's hard. It's all an art, really, because everybody's in pain here. basically, every day. You train till you're in pain. You train up and to the point where you're in pain every day. If you feel great after a practice, you are probably not properly trained. You’re pushing yourself to the limit of : "What can my body handle?" Am I recovered enough to get the benefits and reap the rewards in my training? It's one of the arts of being an athlete is trying to get that sort of dialed in. Even as you get older, you might know more about your body, but then you’re older. So, things change. You are not as supple. You can’t bounce back the way you used to. The goalposts shift. And that's a tough one. It's hard, but you do the best you can. People don't realize that most of the athletes they see on TV are most likely in pain. Still, the fans on the couch want to rant and rave about their performance. People don’t understand how difficult this is.
TA: Well thanks, Tennys. Good luck today. See you soon.
This interview is broken into four different ‘quick reads’ that have all been posted here at tennisacumen.com .
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