This article is part of FT Globetrotter’s guide to tennis
Tennis elbow wasn’t the first injury of my middle-aged tennis career. I’d also been briefly felled by a mysterious leg pain, and I injured my other arm when I was running backwards from the net and tried to break a fall with my hand. (“Always fall on your butt,” a Californian told me later, as if this was a Buddhist koan.)
However, tennis elbow — technically epicondylitis — kept me away from tennis for months and was a psychological turning point. I realised that I could no longer prance on to the court, do a few perfunctory stretches and then play merrily for hours. I needed to get serious about preparing my body for tennis and recovering afterwards.