Q&A With Children's Mercy Dr. Harvey

As far as off the court, we want to limit the amount of sport specialization that we have in tennis. Don’t just play only tennis. Wait to specialize until you’re 15 or 16. You need to give yourself a day off to recover. Don’t play in multiple tournaments back-to-back-to-back. For the younger kids, focus on more free-play opportunities. Make sure unstructured, non-practice free-play is at least equal to the amount of structured time they’re actually playing in practice and in competition. We know that injury goes up if the competition-to-free-play ratio is higher than two-to-one.

From a prevention standpoint, if you’ve had a bit of a layoff, have a good plan on how to get back into training. Slowly ramp up, you shouldn’t just go out and start serving 1,000 balls on day one. It should be a gradual work-up. Unfortunately with COVID-19, a lot of people had a layoff. In that month or two after everybody started playing again, we started seeing a ton of overuse injuries.

USTA Heart of America: What other advice do you have for athletes trying to stay healthy?

Dr. Harvey: It’s important with tennis athletes, and really athletes in general, to know that they shouldn’t push through pain. If they’re having consistent pain, that’s a red flag and they really should be looked at.

In this day and age with the increased focus on mental health, it’s important to recognize that we do have a Family Sports Counselor at Children's Mercy and that if they’re having issues they can certainly reach out. 

You also need to focus on what you’re eating. Have a good plan as far as how you recover and how you can prepare your body. The unique thing about tennis is that you can have tournaments where you’re playing four-or-five matches a day as a youth tennis player. We need to look at how they’re recovering in-between matches from a diet and hydration standpoint. Having a good diet can mean the difference between winning that tournament and losing in the second or third round because you’re not really hydrated or fueled.

Children’s Mercy’s performance lab is also a good tool for injury prevention. We can potentially save your shoulder or elbow if we can correct some of the things that you’re doing mechanically while increasing your performance. Really, from the therapists, to the mental health counselors, to the dietitians and physicians, Children’s Mercy has 360° coverage for athletes.

Learn more about Children's Mercy Sports Medicine here.