This just in overweight hacker Socal tears his hamstring running after hopeless ball

Currently, I am writing this post in a haze of alleve and alcohol not to mention the herbal remedies that california is famous for and after my tenth ice pack job. I was playing on Thursday and not to toot my own horn I was laying a hurting on ths cocky guy at my club. I won the first set 6-3 and was up 3-0 in the second. I have always been really quick off the mark so I was doing my best Nole or Nadal squeezing the court on my opposition hitting winners while making him fight for every winner. Well this strategy was working perfectly, my running passing shots had my opponent doing the fake clap with his racquet at the net over and over again.. This strategy worked perfectly well till it didn't, on a hopeless backhand I took a Djokovic lunge to reach out wide and show my opponent that this was a war and no ball was getting by the kid. Well I got a racquet to it but the dead sprint lunge was a little bit more than my 36 year old body could handle. I felt a searing pain behind my leg which must feel something like what a dear feels when shot with a high powered rifle. I have had injuries before usually when you cool down you feel them. Not this one, I went down in a heap, instantly quit the match and nearly vomitted from the pain. Slight tear of the hammy, only remedy a few weeks of rest and antiflammatories.


Still it got me thinking how amazing these guys are, admittedly I brought a bit too much intensity to my club play and paid the ulitmate price. Fortunately, no surgery required and it only hurts in certain times. But I realize now how much toughness a pro athlete has to have and tolerance for pain. I think one of the most underrated characteristcs of a pro athlete is durability and pain threshold. Whenever I think about this type of commitment I think of NFL legend Ronnie lott, hands down the best free safety in the game. For those unitiated in the ways of American Football the free safety is the hitman on the defense the one who has to disloge the pass catcher from the football with vicious hits. Before his last superbowl two of his fingers where so smashed that the doctor said if he wanted to play in the big game he had to chop off two of his fingers off his hand or he would have to miss the game. Well Ronnnie took the knife and has one more championship ring but two less fingers to wear them on. He played and he played possessed laying out Cincinnati bengals ball carriers and pass catchers in a terrifying manner.

When I think of Nadal and what he has been through or even a guy like Brian baker the word i think about is love. Or even the guys at my club. I see them out there with practically a full body brace some of them. I never ask them how they are because if I do they will start to tell about their body and it is depressing. Now there are a lot of good young guys at the club as well, but I have a soft spot for the human body braces that show up each and every day. There is a price to be paid to play this game at even a moderately high level especially into the more advanced ages. And the pros who have to manage these type of things get way too little credit. Federer to me is amazing because it seems he has the absolute grace to pull off this sport without the type of injuries I just received.

Ouch socal. Torn hamstring. I'm also 36 and play badminton, tennis and football most weeks as well as going to the gym 3 or 4 times a week but I've somehow avoided any serious injury or muscle tear throughout my whole life.

But yes, I think tennis players are underrated as athletes. 7 best of 5 matches in 2 weeks to win a slam. For Murray in New York 3 of those matches were 4 hours or more. Think if the semi and final Nocak had to go through in Australia this year.

The fitness levels of these guys, the top guys in particular, really is quite something.

Beyond fitness a level of focus and determination is needed for tennis because you can't rely on teammates to do part of the work. I had been lucky as well Danny, but this was really a stupid ball I should of let go. I keep replaying it in my head. Could of been worse could of been a knee.

I mean when you consider all the things these guys deal with in terms of the pounding their bodies take it really is amazing. Recent comments by Federer show that even for a player who plays like Roger the grind of the season can be extremely tough. In my mind Tennis players are highly overrated as athletes. I keep going over the incredible feat Djoko pulled off of playing 11 hours of championship tennis against the best in the world in one weekend.

"In my mind Tennis players are highly overrated as athletes. I keep going over the incredible feat Djoko pulled off of playing 11 hours of championship tennis against the best in the world in one weekend."

I agree..... Assuming you mean underrated though??

Crikey, that's a tough injury socal. Hope you're not out of action for too long.
It was about your age that I decided that singles was a young man's game - nowadays I only play the odd set in practice.

Get well soon!!

Haze of Alleve and Alcohol. Dangerous.

Get well soon.

Thank Banbro, Julius, and Laverfan on your well wishes. The leg is a lot better than it was thursday although not exactly great today.

Julius that is my problem I can't get into doubles. I just want to hit every single ball but I guess I should try it because eventually all players have to go that route.

Danny, good on you catching the typo I chalk that up to the haze of alcohol and alleve, sorry laverfan I need the alleve to attend a big party.

The athletic level of the tour is going up and up. Speed is becoming more and more important. I really see this as being a larger and larger part of what separates the top guys from everyone else. If you look at the top 5 players on tour all of them are very fast and quick. In all modern sports it seems that speed kills and with the modern gear even smaller guys can generate the pace and power necessary to compete while still being able to bring their speed to bear.

I for one am going to let a few more balls go, I think that is the message the body was sending.

Funny, I was diving all over the place on Saturday.

By the way, you must be the first player I've ever heard of to retire a set and 3-0 up!

Henman Bill wrote:Funny, I was diving all over the place on Saturday.

By the way, you must be the first player I've ever heard of to retire a set and 3-0 up!

Well Henman take it from I have been replaying that stupid move on my part everytime my leg gives me trouble now. Just let a couple go it is tough to do as you always think you can move like a kid.

The funny thing about this guy I have kind of passed him up in the last few months and he is real cocky so he hated that I beat him a couple times in a row he kept challenging me so we set up another match that was even more one sided than most of the matches we had before. He was really nice got me an icebag and helped me to the car, but I joked with him and said he was worse than the mafia that when he wants revenge he cripples his opponent as opposed to just winning the match.

I wish I could have finished the match but unfortunately I couldn't take an MTO and have someone wrap and strap for a go. Frankly, I couldn't walk that well first night so I don't think that would have helped either.

Hey socal Sorry to hear about the accident wasn´t it Agassi that said about Rafa (something like) "his game writes checks his body cannot cash" and look whats happened to him
.. obviously you weren´t listening

Yes Haddie, thanks for the well wishes. It was a stupid play as I really should have realized I am not 19 anymore. But it is easier said than done to simply control your instincts like that in the heat of the moment. As you say the mind is certainly pushing the body to do things the body doesn't want to, and the body struck back in a major way.