Issue link: http://itf.uberflip.com/i/1478901
38 Summer 2022 ITF World MENTAL HEALTH SUMMIT Held in New York during the US Open, the Mental Health in Tennis Summit was a joint initiative of the T7 group of the seven key stakeholders of professional tennis, the ITF, ATP, WTA and the four Grand Slam tournaments. Hosted by the United States Tennis Association and co-organised by the ITF, the two-day event brought tennis bodies together to discuss mental wellbeing among tennis's elite athletes and share knowledge with a view to fostering good mental health in the sport in the future. Ahead of the event, ITFWorld spoke to Dr Brian Hainline, Chair of the ITF Sport Science & Medicine Commission and a co-director of the summit, to find out more. ITFWorld: Why is tennis hosting its own mental health symposium? Brian Hainline: The International Olympic Committee (IOC) held the first ever world summit on mental health in elite sport in 2019. As there is little sport-specific data, a mental health symposium that is tennis- specific should help advance a path forward for other sports to also host sport-specific summits. ITFW: Who will be at the Mental Health in Tennis Summit, and what will be discussed? BH: The summit will include core tennis stakeholders (players, coaches, officials, media, administrators), content experts, representatives from the seven governing bodies of tennis (the four Grand Slam tournaments, ITF, ATP, WTA), and the IOC. ITFW: How are the IOC involved? BH: Three of the summit directors (Claudia Reardon, Vincent Gouttebarge and myself, Brian Hainline) were also members of the IOC summit on mental health in elite athletes, and the tennis summit allows them to expand on the prior IOC work. Additionally, Athlete 365 - the IOC's official community for elite athletes and Olympians - will be part of the summit, connecting tennis players to other Olympic athletes. ITFW: What do you hope will happen as a result of the summit? BH: We hope to develop foundational principles of mental health care and mental wellness in tennis that provide a springboard for educational material, policy and future research. ITFW: What mental health support is in place currently for tennis athletes and how does this compare to other sports? BH: During the past year, there has been an increasing openness to discuss mental health concerns in tennis, and this has led the four Grand Slam tournaments to develop tournament-specific mental health support systems. In addition, the ITF Sport Science & Medicine Commission has communicated educational material regarding mental health symptoms and disorders to ITF stakeholders. We believe tennis is leading the way in sport by pro-actively developing competition action plans and hosting a sport-specific summit. ITFW: Does professional tennis have specific mental health challenges? It is not clear if there are tennis-specific mental health challenges versus mental health challenges of individual sport, versus team sport. We hope to gather more insight into this question during the summit. BH: How much progress has tennis, and sport in general, made with breaking taboos around mental health? There has been considerable progress in decreasing the stigma associated with seeking mental health care as a result of so many athletes giving voice to their personal struggles. We have seen this among Olympic athletes, tennis players and other professional/collegiate athletes. This, coupled with the willingness of sport governing bodies to treat mental health symptoms and disorders in a manner similar to physical injury and illness, has led to the first major wave of progress. Sport-specific summits will help crystallize this momentum into concrete action plans and research going forward. New York The first-ever Mental Health in Tennis Summit was held recently and marks the latest step forward in opening up the subject of mental health in the elite game. STATE OF MIND DR BRIAN HAINLINE Chair of the ITF Sport Science & Medicine Commission