Bringing the healing touch on Tour
And for Elaine Brady, a sports physiotherapist, or Primary Care Giver for the Women’s Tennis Association, the long and busy days at this year’s Australian Open have thankfully passed by without event.
“No drama I’m afraid this year, we came through it pretty unscathed, which is good for us,” Clonmel-born Brady reported from Melbourne yesterday. “We were busy all through the event but thankfully it has quietened down a lot now that we are nearing the end.”
Typically, Brady will be on the road at tournaments for up to 24 weeks a year, interspersing the regular WTA events with the four Slams and this year she is also taking in a stint at the London Olympics, where she will help players in the women’s tennis events prepare for and recover from their matches and, if need be, repair them too.
The Irishwoman arrived in Melbourne for the first Grand Slam of 2012 almost three weeks ago, two days before the qualifying draw got underway and six days before the start of the main draw.
“There’s always a certain buzz about working these bigger events, particularly the Grand Slams, and this being the first Grand Slam of the year is always exciting,” she said.
“Everyone wants to get the year off to a good start. We don’t get over excited, you have to stay fairly level headed to get your job done but definitely it’s exciting to see the new players coming through at the Grand Slams and it’s always exciting with the young Australians coming through here.
“So there’s always a certain energy at the Grand Slams with the bigger crowds as well, its always an exciting time.”
Brady’s Florida-based job at the WTA involves more than just attending to the player’s immediate fitness needs during tournaments.
The WTA’s Primary Care Givers look after the general health of players as well as providing physiotherapy services.
“We work with the players before the matches, getting them ready and prepared, on court if there are injuries and then recovery after matches. We work with them all throughout the year when they’re on tour and we also follow them during the off-season if they need any assistance or if they’re injured and off the road, just to make sure they’re getting the correct medical care and treatment.
“And when I’m not working as a physio my other job at the WTA is as a senior manager with tournament relations. It’s my job to coordinate the medical care at all our different tournaments on the WTA calendar, talking with the tournament directors and doctors at every event to make sure that they have everything ready for us.”
Preparation is everything in sport and Brady has seen huge benefits in her organisation’s policy towards injury prevention, which saw the vast majority of the tour’s players turn up for the first Slam of the year in good shape.
“It’s been great because with our WTA Road Map we’ve got an extended off-season now, which has made a difference to the players. That said, coming to Australia presents a number of challenges, most notably the climate here — it can take a week or two to acclimatise to the heat and humidity. So we were preparing the players for the environment, for the extreme heat conditions and educating them well in advance, before they even got here as to what they can do to pre-hydrate and prepare for their matches, as well as cooling themselves and rehydrating on court.
“Then there’s the recovery processes to prepare them for their next match.”
The nature of the tennis majors — Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open — means the physio’s workload over these two-week tournaments with large fields is at its most intense.
Even so, says Brady: “The slams are my favourites. They’re longer days, we start earlier and we have night matches well into the evening, past 11pm. But there’s a great buzz around the Grand Slams and the way the WTA works with its physios, they try and schedule it so we’re not doing all four Grand Slams, just two or three. That said, last year I did all four but generally we try and balance it out.”
Two, three, or four Slams a year, it makes no difference to the effort required on any given day, as Brady explained when describing her day to the Irish Examiner at 11.30pm Australian time, while still on site and with a women’s first-round match still in progress.
“They’re full-on, long days, a lot of players and a lot of work. The matches start at 11am, so we’re here at 8.45am, when myself and the lead WTA and Australian physios meet with the doctors on site. We go through any injuries and illnesses from the day before and what we’re expecting from the day to come. Then at 9am we meet with all the physios on the women’s draw side and go through all the players on the schedule for that day, discussing their injuries, their match prep and what they’re going to do; whether they need to be taped, what warm-ups they need, are we expecting any court calls, is there anything we can do to get ahead of that and prevent those things. That’s an hour-long meeting for the day’s play and then we start preparing and treating at 10am, an hour before the first matches go on court. And when the matches start on court, it’s all hands on deck and all systems go. We’re prepping, treating and helping players to recover after their matches throughout the day, we’re responding to any court calls for treatment. At the start of the slams, it’s pretty full-on from then until about 9pm, when it starts to taper down.”
Yet while the circus takes a short break next week before the WTA Tour decamps to Paris for the Open GDF Suez, there will be no time for tapering as far as Brady is concerned. Having been with the WTA for four and a half years, all of it based in the United States, Brady explained: “When I get back from Australia I’m actually relocating to the WTA office in London, so I’ll be closer to home and I’m looking forward to that.”
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