On Injury

Injury is an unfortunate, but inevitable part of sport. Some players are lauded for remaining largely injury free through long careers (Giggs) and others are dismissed and mocked for being too fragile (RVP). “How much more could he have achieved if he hadn’t had those terrible injuries?” will forever be a popular topic. The media tirelessly covers player injuries and does so to such an extent that it sometimes seems exploitative. Fans also feel at liberty to express their opinions on the validity of tackles, fouls, timeouts, and trainer summons. 

Tennis and soccer are at opposite ends of the spectrum for in-match injury credulity. Tennis fans are generally receptive to any hint of injury and its impact on the player’s performance. After a slip or fall, it is not unusual for a player to lapse mentally for a couple games and fans do not hold it against a player. Conversely, in soccer we expect a player to get up and carry on at 100% after a crunching (but fair) tackle because soccer players are infamously dramatic. Time wasting and running down the clock are not a factor in tennis, which might account for greater sympathy. 

As is true in any sport, tennis injuries are over scrutinized and given too much attention. Commentators tirelessly wish the injured player well and (generously) attribute poor form to ‘lingering’ this or that. At the 2013 US Open, American Mardy Fish’s heart condition was covered to absurdity. Overindulgent injury coverage is problematic because it’s boring and uninteresting, but mostly because it takes away from live play.

Injuries are something that should be mentioned once and not again. It’s like a friend telling you she’s training for the marathon. It’s good information to know, but please do not share the minute details or give a minute by minute update.

If the player is competing, it’s fair to assume that is not a grave injury and therefore shouldn’t be given so much air time. But have you considered the broadcaster’s perspective? It is in their best interest to spin the fantastical yarn of the injury odyssey. If the sensationalist tone is not kept up, viewers (with their tragically short attention spans) may get bored and start watching WWE or Tosh.0 instead. Injury as entertainment is a distasteful but very real plot line in sports media. 

It is unfair to suggest that a player act against his own best interest for the entertainment value of a match. The dishonor of a tennis retirement is sometimes rooted in perceived gamesmanship or tanking. Djokovic is still haunted by his early career habit of retiring from numerous matches (sore throat was one instance). The idea is that a player knows he is going to lose so he attempts to save face by chalking up the lousy performance to an injury. Tennis players must make this call on their own and suffer the consequences. If an athlete is lambasted for making the right decision for his or her career and health, there’s something wrong with public perception of tennis retirements. It’s like when Gatsby dies. No one cares when the drama is over. They care more about the injury-hype than the player. This attention is paid selfishly because fans don’t want the match to end. If a player appears to be cramping or clutches his stomach the commentators can speak of nothing else. It’s like when there are rumors about an old (and irrelevant band) reuniting. Interestingly, the retirement equivalent in soccer, asking to be subbed off, is regarded without incredulity. 

Fans want to see players dig in and in both tennis and soccer, fans are gratuitously reverent of self-sacrifice. The line between persevering to one’s own detriment and trying one’s absolute hardest is hard for even the player to identify. Soccer players receive the benefit of the doubt when it comes to making the decision to remove themselves from the field of play. The immense difficulty of securing a place in the XI renders the thought that a player would voluntarily elect to be subbed off unthinkable. The ‘sub him off’ rolling hand gesture makes your heart sink for the player. When a player must make the difficult request to be subbed off it is unlikely you will see him in the following match. 

While their decision to self-sub is largely respected, soccer players are sometimes shortchanged when it comes to going to ground. Gamesmanship injuries are so common in soccer that commentators feel at liberty to judge the legitimacy of each foul and more often that not, commentators declare a fair tackle and that the player should have “done more to stay on his feet”.

Herein lies the difference between the way injury is perceived in tennis versus soccer. Since they are few and far between, tennis injuries are treated with a solemnity not granted in soccer. Additionally, with only two people on court and no subs, injury must be dealt with seriously and immediately. The frequency of tackles and diving in soccer means that each incident is received with a level of skepticism. This is not to say that tennis is free of gamesmanship injury.

The halt in play when Victoria Azarenka used an injury timeout to kill Sloane Stephen’s momentum was ten minutes. In those ten minutes Azarenka was able to recenter herself and unnerve Sloane, who had been close to an upset. This lengthy timeout is in contrast to soccer, in which injuries/fouls/treatment are nonstop and par for the course. The stoppage time at the end of a soccer match rarely exceeds five minutes. Add this to the first half stoppage time and you have roughly eight minutes of timeout for twenty-two players.

If injuries were as common in tennis as they are in soccer matches, it’s to hard imagine that players would be allowed such long timeouts. Skepticism and cynicism account for why injuries are either respected as authentic or vilipended as false. Tennis retirements are are considered throwing the towel in, but in-match injuries are treated as legitimate. Soccer is in the opposite–unless you ask to be subbed off, you’re just another whinger. 

Fans wouldn’t have such strong opinions about injuries, sub-offs, and retirements if coverage didn’t focus so operatically on them. If injury news were relayed simply as fact rather than as entertainment, all parties would be better off. But as long as gamesmanship exists, so too will injury fodder.