If you are toying with the theory that everything and everyone are connected in some way then the annual feast of tennis at Wimbledon may help to cement your belief. For no sooner has the first ball been struck on the hallowed Centre Court than gardens and roads across the country resound with the thunk of old tennis ball on broken racket.
For two weeks every year it almost seems as though every child is a tennis player. Whilst the professional players may be contesting for pride and £millions, never has a match been more keenly contested than that staged in the alleyway between the garden shed and the cabbages.
Unfortunately, at the time of writing the first few days of Wimbledon 2013 have been dogged with controversy about the state of the courts and the numbers of those who have withdrawn due to injury. No matter that a higher number of players withdrew at the same stage of the US Open two years before or that the first couple of days always sees a number of slips at Wimbledon as the grass beds in; the toll of injuries has lead to much comment both in the press and in the players’ lounge.
In truth it is impossible for any sports person to go through their life without picking up one injury or another. Writing for the BBC, Andy Murray acknowledged this saying:
“As athletes, you spend a lot of your time carrying injuries of one sort or another. I’d say there are three categories: about 20% of the time your body feels great and you feel nothing; quite a bit of the time you’ll have something that might be a bit sore, but it doesn’t affect your tennis at all; the rest of the time you can be carrying something that means you have to compensate and make adjustments to your game. Everyone has to deal with it.”
Whether professional sports person or not, when an injury strikes the quicker treatment starts the better. Physiotherapists, osteopaths and other health professionals know that early treatment not only promotes a swifter return to form it can also help to prevent the occurrence of further compensating injures. But maximising the availability of treatment times is not easy when time is also taken up in managing diaries and answering calls. Using a virtual assistant service can relieve the pressure and enable health professionals to concentrate on helping patients to return to form without compromising on service.