The team responsible for keeping tennis’ elite players injury-free on the ATP World Tour were at the ISEH on Monday for a day of training and discussion following the ATP World Tour Finals in London.
The ISEH is a post-Olympics collaboration between UCLH, UCL, the British Olympic Association, English Institute of Sport and private hospital group HCA and aims to give NHS and private patients levels of care and expertise previously only available to elite athletes. Its state-of-the-art facilities on Tottenham Court Road opened in June 2013 and are an integral part of the National Centre for Sport and Exercise Medicine.
Following Novak Djokovic’s victory in Sunday’s tour finale at the O2, the tour’s Vice President of Medical Services, Todd Ellenbecker, and his team visited the ISEH for some year-end learning and discussion.
Todd’s team of 15 physios provide sports medicine care to players on the ATP World Tour throughout the year. The team is not only responsible for acute injury management and injury prevention, but also for the preparation of on-site facilities and working with local tournament physicians in each of the Tour’s 62 events across the world.
Todd was introduced to the ISEH by Development Director Matt James during this summer’s Wimbledon, and seized the opportunity to make use of the facilities.
“We met for a very full day at ISEH this year and were able to perform hands-on training, lectures and discussions in the meetings rooms there,” said Todd. “The facility has ample meeting space and provided us the opportunity to show audio-visual, and have hands on labs like CPR and emergency training, lectures and discussions in an optimal state of the art facility.”
Constantly being on the road brings plenty of challenges for Todd’s team, which is tasked with providing consistent and continuous elite athlete care while keeping pace with the globetrotting tour.
“One of the largest challenges has been to co-ordinate care with different physios and doctors from week to week, so we’ve implemented an electronic medical record to store all evaluation and treatment data for the players to allow for greater continuity of care,” says Todd. “Treating and preventing over-use injuries is one of the biggest issues for us in tennis, which is a repetitive, explosive sport. We don’t just treat injuries when they occur; we have programs in place to work with players to prevent injuries and care for their bodies throughout the year to decrease the number of injuries in tennis.”
Matt James, ISEH Development Director, said: “We are delighted to have welcomed Todd Ellenbecker and his team to the Institute for what proved to be an excellent day. The team here were really pleased to have met them and I hope we’ll see more of Todd and the team in future.”