{"id":275716,"date":"2025-11-10T16:05:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T16:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/275716\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T16:05:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T16:05:08","slug":"why-tennis-might-actually-be-the-sport-that-cheats-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/275716\/","title":{"rendered":"Why tennis might actually be the sport that cheats death"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Tennis players may have found a way to live longer without suffering for it.MelkiNimages\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

As a competitive distance runner, there are a lot of things I love about my sport. But if we\u2019re talking about longevity, running is not the fountain of youth it\u2019s cracked up to be. <\/p>\n

Over time, many of us become injured and reduced to joggers \u2013 some quit entirely. Lately, I\u2019ve been wondering: once I hang up the running shoes, what\u2019s a sport that will keep me healthy and happy deep into old age?<\/p>\n

The answer, apparently, is tennis.<\/p>\n

Pickleball may have stolen many headlines over the last two years, acting as a gateway to tennis, but also poaching its players. Yet tennis has never been hotter \u2013 thanks to the rise of a friendly but flaming-hot rivalry between Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, and the tantalizing movie Challengers, where two young pro players bullfight for Zendaya. <\/p>\n

Strength and endurance may not be enemies after all<\/a><\/p>\n

How to prevent tweaks, strains and tears caused by tennis, running and other popular workouts<\/a><\/p>\n

In Canada, tennis is thriving: F\u00e9lix Auger-Aliassime won an Olympic medal, Bianca Andreescu took a Grand Slam, Leylah Fernandez made a deep U.S. Open run and players such as Victoria Mboko and Gabriel Diallo are already being hailed as the next big things. <\/p>\n

In the U.S., tennis participation rose to 25.7 million players in 2024, up nearly two million from the year before \u2013 the sport\u2019s fifth consecutive year of growth. It\u2019s attracting people across age groups: players under 25 are responsible for almost half of last year\u2019s growth, while seniors taking up the game jumped by 17 per cent.<\/p>\n

At this year\u2019s U.S. Open, tournament branding gleamed with the tagline: The world\u2019s healthiest sport. <\/p>\n

The claim isn\u2019t marketing fluff: it\u2019s based on a longevity study from 2018<\/a>. Researchers in Copenhagen tracked 8,577 adults, aged 20 to 93, for up to 25 years. They found that people who played tennis lived 9.7 years longer on average than those who were sedentary. That lifespan bump beat out every other activity they studied: badminton added 6.2 years, soccer 4.7, cycling 3.7, swimming 3.4, and my beloved running \u2013 or jogging, as they called it \u2013 just 3.2.<\/p>\n

The researchers were careful to note that correlation doesn\u2019t prove causation: tennis players might also be wealthier, better educated or more health conscious. <\/p>\n

Once you break down tennis into its component parts, it\u2019s easy to see why it sits atop the longevity leaderboard. It\u2019s an alchemy of cardiovascular conditioning, balance, agility, strength and cognition. You build bone density and fast-twitch muscles, sharpen hand-eye coordination and \u2013 according to a 2019 study<\/a> \u2013 develop stronger grip and knee strength than your non-playing peers. <\/p>\n

You\u2019re also not bored. Unlike the treadmill, where minutes can feel like hours, tennis is immersive and unpredictable. Peter Schnorr, a longtime tennis player and lead author of the longevity study, said attending fitness clubs three times a week can be boring: \u201cYou train and you don\u2019t talk. In tennis, it\u2019s fun. You experience more than in calisthenics. And the social element is key to longevity.\u201d<\/p>\n

But should we all play tennis? Not necessarily. Schnorr warns that longevity doesn\u2019t come from one magic sport but from variety and enjoyment. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to be tennis,\u201d he said. \u201cIt could be anything that gets you going and makes you feel a sense of purpose.\u201d <\/p>\n

In the age of optimization, when the pursuit of longevity has become an industry \u2013 a race to track the perfect zone-2 heart rate, the perfect resistance routine, the perfect hobby \u2013 it\u2019s a refreshing reminder that the magic formula is more about sustaining joy. <\/p>\n

Most sports come with drawbacks. Hockey is hard on the body. Football is a head injury waiting to happen. Strength training is solitary. Walking is too leisurely. Too much of anything, even tennis, can be bad. <\/p>\n

Still, tennis hits the sweet spot. It\u2019s physically taxing but generally joint-friendly, competitive yet social, serious but still playful \u2013 a way to live longer without suffering for it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Tennis players may have found a way to live longer without suffering for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,21363,85,747],"class_list":{"0":"post-275716","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-noastack","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}