Thiem: "The way we play tennis is not healthy. Injury is inevitable".
Recently retired from the courts, Dominic Thiem can now look back serenely on his career as a professional tennis player. The former world number 3 shared some of his thoughts with our colleagues at The Guardian.
In particular, the Austrian gave his views on the management of physical health in professional tennis in particular, and in top-level sport in general. In his view, it's clear that the conditions under which competition takes place, season after season, are far too traumatic for the human body.
Dominic Thiem: "I think the way we practice this sport is not healthy, and at some point one or more parts of the body break down. You can see it with almost all players, there's no player who doesn't get injured throughout his career. That's what professional sport is all about.
And in my case, it was my wrist. That's not really surprising, because I obviously used my wrist a lot, especially on forehands. It was one of the most important things for me, in the last few moments before hitting the ball, to accelerate a little more with the wrist.
I've done that probably a million times. And at some point, as the doctor said, the wrist became a little too weak and it broke. After that, I never had the same feeling again."
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