My Life As A ...Tennis Player

by Meliss,aArriola guest writer

My life as a tennis player is not what everyone thinks it is. Tennis is what others consider to be the girly sport, the easiest sport out there but it isn't. It's just like any other sport that takes dedication and commitment out of any athlete.

I myself always think of the running I did in the hot summer weather to keep in shape or the work on footwork or the hundreds of balls that I was forced to hit down the line and cross court in a given hourjust trying to perfect my game. Workingon timing and consistency to get the forehands, backhands and serves in just the right place always will be an incredible effort. The work all brought into this game is what tennis is all about.

Of course there is also playing the matches, the countless games that only make you and I better from experience. It's getting yelled at from your coach. It's the third match with the tiebreaker that all adds up to the hard work. It's the devious opponents that you play that makes a game out of cheating because you know in this game that there are no umpire or referee to call out the lines.

Obviously, there ·are many good points. Just the rush of winning for one thing is the greatest feeling when you're out there. When you go on the court for a singles match, you're all alone with no other teammates to help you except to_cheer on the sidelines. You have to think of how you want to play your opponent.

As a tennis player you must beat the game by yourself whether you're in a 60 minute match or a three hour with a tie breaker in the third set. I have to always be ready.

Dedication is a must and when Cabrini brings home a win it is worth all the hard work.

A: The fact is 99 percent of the time it's just heat exhaustion and replacement fluids will solve the problem. What's tragic is you can go right from heat exhaustion to beat stroke, primarily because these are very highly motivated men who work very hard and really don't often tell 1A if they are having trouble. They might throw up and not tell us, there is a lot of peer pressure to stay in and work hard, so unfortunately in some situations athletes work just beyond their point. But they have certainly been doing this a long, long time, and all i;?fus are aware that heat illness is a very serious illness. Hence, we preach hydration constantly. Athletes should drink before practice, after practice and during practice. We make water available for them, and we make Gatorade and other electrolyte beverages available for them. It's so important because they lose so much more than water. An athlete can really sweat almost a gallon of fluid, and in that fluid is salt and minerals and other important electrolytes that the body needs, and that's why we preach that water is just not enough. That's why we have Gatorade and other sports drinks.

Q: Do people react the same way to dehydration?

A: Various people are vulnerable to heat exhaustion and even heat stroke, and that would be older people, large people, obese individuals, people who have had heat exhaustion before are more likely to have it again. Heat illness, we universally believe it is preventable through hydration, but given athletes can sweat as much as a gallon of fluid in a practice, sometimes you just can't drink enough. They're tired, exhausted, and they just don't drink But we really do believe that in most instances it is preventable. Unfortunately, as I said before, you can get yourself into troubleJCally fast without really even knowing it. It sounds like Mr. Stringer bad heat exhaustion the day before and was low on reserves and pushed himself more than he should have the next day. lreally don't know the details of that, but we universally believe that heat stroke is a preventable illness.

Q: How does peer pressure come into play?

A: In football practice around the National Football League, all of the athletic trainers are very aware of heat illness, and so we're watching these players, looking at their weight, how much they're losing between practices and everything else. Of course, the larger players, the linemen, heavy players that weigh 300 pounds, so we're all aware of it, and they're awareof it, too. My point was that they @re very highly motivated, and often times they just don't want to come out and they don't want to drink, and so there can be problems. Even in the military you seethat in very hot environments where you're training for the Marine Corps, people get themselves into trouble. Very rarely. We've never bad a death from heat illness in the National Football League. We've been doing preventative programs for a long time, and 1hisjust happens to be a very unfortunate situation.