Is Djokovic a Vampire? He certainly doesn’t die easily!!

Written by: Tennischiro on 27th January 2012

Is Djokovic a Vampire? He certainly doesn't die easily!!

Novak Djokovic of Serbia in action during his men's singles third round match against Nicolas Mahut of France at the Australian Open Grand Slam tennis tournament in Melbourne, Australia, 21 January 2012. EPA/MAST IRHAM |

We’ve seen some phenomenal tennis the last couple of days and nights from Australia. This second week of the Australian Open has been one of the best ever. As we get ready for a women’s final that promises to push both players to their limits and a men’s final that will have a hard time equaling the drama, quality and intensity of its preceding semifinals, but, nevertheless, is expected to be an epic, I thought it might be a good time for me to don my other personality as a “Certified Chiropractic Sports Practioner” and do a little review on the body’s “Energy Systems”.

We’ve repeatedly seen player after player who was seemingly unable to take even one more step recover and come back and not only take that step and many more, but even win matches they didn’t appear able to complete, much less win. 2 – 3 hour women’s matches and 4 – 5 hours men’s matches are not unusual at the Grand Slam events and the heat of the Australian summer makes them even tougher. The difference in playing day or night matches is hard to comprehend. Just imagine if the men’s semifinals were played in the conditions that Kim Clijsters and Li Na faced earlier in the week. I fear the players could have pushed themselves so far they actually might have done themselves real physical harm. If the Murray/Nishikori day match and the Djokovic/Ferrer night match had been reversed on the schedule, I doubt it would have changed the outcome, but Djokovic and Ferrer might have pushed themselves so far that the winner would have been easy pickings for Murray last night. At least easier pickings. It certainly would have helped Nishikori. The first couple of games of the Djokovic/Ferrer match took nearly a half hour and if fitness had been an even bigger part of the test, Ferrer might have fared a little better.

Li Na had the match won with Clijsters and after what seemed like a mental and psychological break down in the second set, she completely went away physically in the third before staging a brief comeback at the end of the third. Similarly, Nishikori looked like you could push him over with a feather at the end of his match with Murray and yet he kept coming up with unbelievable shots to force Murray to play his best to put him away. Where did they find the energy when they appeared to be so completely spent? Last night Djokovic was literally doubled over after some of the points in the third set as Murray took a 2 set to 1 lead. He’s so slim he looks like he is trying out for a cameo in the next new vampire movie (kind of like “Men in Black” where they said Elvis was alive, but returned to his home planet). And normally it is Novak who is sucking all the blood and energy out of his victims, but Murray was putting it to him pretty good at that stage of the match. How did he recover and manage to prevail in a nearly 5 hour match? After he appeared to be so completely spent?

The general public thinks the players are combating all these problems with magical fluids they are drinking and little gel packs they are consuming on change of sides. The simple fact is that you cannot even replace the water you are losing in a match like that, much less the energy. The drinks and supplements certainly help and are absolutely necessary, but it is the body’s own systems that are supplying most of the energy. External hydration is, of course, absolutely necessary, but for those matches players begin hydrating the day before.

Here are two good sources to view to understand the body’s “Energy Systems” a little bit better:

http://www.brianmac.co.uk/energy.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_systems

Tennis is primarily an anaerobic sport. Even with an average of more than 7 strokes per point (as in last night’s match), few points go more than 15 seconds. So most of the work is done by the ATP, CP and Lactic Acid systems. But those are exhausted in a few points. As you can see from some of the tables in the first article, even with 30 seconds to recover (Grand Slam rules call for just 20 seconds between points although that is usually stretched closer to 25 or 30), there is only a 75% recovery of the longer acting Lactic Acid system. Playing point after point after point soon depletes these systems almost completely. But the body is working overtime to try to replace those limited energy stores. Tennis players train their bodies to recover and train their bodies to switch over to their aerobic energy stores as quickly as possible to restore those systems. But it takes time for the slower aerobic system to kick into high gear. That’s part of the reason you hit a wall early when you go out and try to play a match without a full warmup. If your body is not ready for the intensity of full speed competition it just say, “I quit!” Then you settle down and lo and behold, you are able to play a 90 minute match, maybe even more.

Well, professional players have trained themselves to endure very harsh conditions and they’ve prepared themselves for these long matches. But no matter how much they prepare, there is a point at which the body has to switch from the glucose readily stored in the blood stream to the energy stored in the fat cells which is converted into available ATP through a process called gluconeogenesis. This happens somewhere between two and three hours into the match. It’s not as effective or explosive, but it will keep you going (with enough water) for a very long time (1 lb. of fat can supply 3500 kcal of energy). I would suggest that that is what we are seeing when these players seem to “come back from the dead”. Their bodies are switching over from burning available glucose to burning fat. This transition takes some time and the player is waiting for his “second wind”. Part of the function of the drinks the players are taking is to facilitate and supplement this process; and, of course, to supply glucose in the drink as well. But you have to remember all the blood is being pulled away from the digestive system to the muscles where the work is being done and there is not a lot of digestion taking place. So there is a very real limit to how much energy they can ingest during the match.

Over a course of a two-week Grand Slam event, too many matches will deplete the body’s natural stores of energy and the player simply can’t replace them. That’s why so much is made of the number of hours one player may have played on the court more than another. They routinely play more than that in practice, but to hold their performance at the level that is required in the later rounds of these events requires them to be at their very best.

So if you see a player appearing to be ready for the graveyard, don’t give them up for “dead” just yet; they are looking for a little time to get their internal supplemental energy system to kick in. And, oh yes, there may be a little pain associated with getting through this period even after that system has kicked in. But that is nothing, …NOTHING… compared to the desire they have to go forward.

Topics: Australian Open, djokovic, Murray, nadal