Sinner withdraws from the US Open; the doctor’s assessment: likely to be a strain injury
Jannik Sinner has announced that he will not be taking part in the US Open, due to the knee injury that has hampered him over the past few weeks.
The news that the tennis world – not just in Italia – did not want to hear tells us that “when a tennis player experiences painful symptoms in the absence of acute injuries, such as sprains or falls, the most likely diagnosis is a functional overload condition, known as overuse.
Modern tennis, characterised by extremely high-intensity rallies, constant deceleration and sudden changes of direction, generates repeated shear and compressive forces that can exceed the biological self-repair capacity of the tissues.
Contrary to what one might think, the majority of injuries in this sport affect the lower limbs, which account for between 30 per cent and 65 per cent of all injuries at elite level, significantly outnumbering those affecting the shoulder and elbow.
“Among these, knee injuries account for around 10–15 per cent of all cases, and in 60–70 per cent of cases they are linked to repeated microtrauma and progressive wear and tear, rather than to isolated traumatic incidents.”
