Top tennis prospect Nick Kyrgios is the latest Australian sportsman with a question mark over his fitness.
The 19-year-old missed the start of the season in the Hopman Cup and Brisbane International with a back injury, and was the walking wounded with a knee problem in the latter stages of his three-set loss to Poland’s Jerzy Janowicz in Sydney last night.
Lleyton Hewitt is the prime example. His stellar career has been consistently punctured by injuries and surgery.
Turn the clock back to the likes of Frank Sedgman, Ken Rosewall, Lew Hoad, Rod Laver, Roy Emerson, Neale Fraser, Ashely Cooper, Fred Stolle, John Newcombe, and Tony Roche to name a few, and there were no injuries, maybe the odd niggle, but nothing to miss tournaments.
Take the cricketers, especially the pacemen.
Ray Lindwall, Keith Miller. Bill Johnston, Alan Davidson, Graham McKenzie, Ian Meckiff, Alan Connolly, Gary Gilmour, Len Pascoe, and Rodney Hogg didn’t have any problems in eras where they had jobs 9-5, practiced on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, and played on Saturdays.
Only Dennis Lillee, with stress fractures of his back that required a change in his bowling delivery to lessen the problem, and firebrand Jeff Thomson who collided with Alan Turner in Adelaide against Pakistan that broke his collarbone and had to be pinned, were casualties in the pre-Packer era,
And let’s not forget, when Sheffield Shield or Test duties were called on, they had to get time off work to represent.
Take the current crop of pacemen – Mitchell Johnson, Ryan Harris, Trent Copeland, Pat Cummins, James Pattinson, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, and Jackson Bird.
Every one of them has been out of action for long periods, Cummins in particular has played only one Test against South Africa just over three years ago in a stunning man of the match performance, but hasn’t played a Test since.
Take Michael Clarke, and Shane Watson, who are consistently injured.
But both of them have been full-time professional cricketers since they left school.
Clarke (33), has had chronic back problems since he was 17, and since then has added hamstring injuries that are likely to reappear at the flick of a switch.
Watson (also 33) has injured his back, shoulder, groin, calf, and ankles, apologies if I’ve missed anything. So much so Watson has played 56 Tests, but missed 58 though injury.
Brothers Shaun and Mitchell Marsh are injury prone as well, while their opening batsman father Geoff had no such problems.
Which raises the question are current Australian tennis players and cricketers over-trained, or soft?
Are they spending far too much time in the gym lifting weights, something tennis and cricket legends of the past never did?
Or are there too many on the coach’s support staff who are over-cooking the current crop to justify their existence?
Somewhere among those questions are the answers.
One thing’s for sure, the answers have to be found.
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