“On Friday, eating before the game, Carlos already had a closed stomach,” confessed Carlos Alcaraz’s entourage to Nacho Encabo, Relevo editor.
And then, after getting rid of Novak Djokovic, the cramped Alcaraz would confirm the data:
I was more tense than usual. Perhaps it had been from having to face Djokovic in the semifinal of a Grand Slam. The fact is that managing muscle cramps was complicated. At first he had felt them on his arm. Then on the legs. In the end, he had them all over his body. I think the demand of the first two sets took its toll on me.
–There are three reasons that justify these cramps –says Toni Bové, reference physiotherapist–: tension, lack of water and lack of potassium. The heat (30ºC in that semifinal), combined with dehydration, fatigue and stress, could block Alcaraz. It is something similar to what happens to marathon runners. I am sure that Alcaraz is well prepared. But you can’t control the tension.
And he recovers that passage of Rafael Nadal at the 2011 US Open, when he was talking to journalists and fell from his chair due to a cramp.
“I also think of Indurain’s bird in Hautacam,” says Dr. Manuel Salvador, director of Imagine.
It refers to the 1996 Tour.
–In tests of continuous physical effort, there are moments in which the hydroelectrolytic balance breaks down. It may be due to dehydration, heat or momentary hypoglycemia. The fact is that, then, the muscular function that needs a constant supply of food does not work as it should, and then come contractures or cramps and, finally, the metabolic debacle. Hypoglycemia can be general or local, and requires rest to repair itself, it is not usually solved in a match, no matter how much the athlete eats.
