Top Tennis Eating Habits
Tennis players are incredible athletes, and an important part of staying in shape is watching what they eat. So what do tennis players eat? Let’s take a look at the top tennis eating habits!
Patty Schnyder was convinced by her coach that it would help her game to drink three liters of orange juice a day, and to become a vegan. Schnyder had 17-year career so maybe there was something to all that vitamin C.
Ever since Venus Williams discovered she was suffering from the autoimmune disease Sjögren's syndrome, Williams has become a vegan. “I changed my diet completely, so lots of vegetables. I altered my mind frame completely because I used to be a person who always ate their steak first and their salad second.” Williams also drinks a lot of juices now for energy boosts.
When practicing as a child, every time Marion Bartoli hit a target, her father would reward her with candy. Since then Bartoli has developed a big sweet tooth, and indulges her candy cravings every now and then.
On her arrival in the United States, Martina Navratilova fell in love with the American fast-food chains that she put on a great deal of weight. “Yes, I Big Mac’d across America,” Navratilova has recalled of those days, though she soon banned cheeseburgers and binged instead on steamed vegetables.
During changeovers, you can occasionally catch Maria Sharapova snacking on a banana, and at the 2006 US Open the banana lover sparked an illegal coaching controversy after her father looked over at his daughter and held up a banana reminding her to eat. “If someone tells me to eat a banana, do you think that’s the reason why I’m going to win a match? This is great advice, we should tell all the junior players to, you know, have a banana, and they’re all going to win. Great.”
In 2010, Mardy Fish cut out the junk food to lose thirty pounds in three months. “You see a lot of guys go downhill as they get older, but I’m going the other way, and that’s mostly because of diet,” Fish has said. Fish cut out food like pizzas and cheeseburgers.
The young Canadian Milos Raonic enjoys his red meat! Raonic likes to enjoy a medium rare steak that’s a little bloody the night before his matches.
In 2010, Novak Djokovic adopted the diet that changed tennis. His team discovered Djokovic is allergic to gluten, and after adjusting his diet, he lost weight and began moving better. Before the diet Djokovic had to regularly deal with allergies and breathing difficulties, and since the diet change, Djokovic has won 5 grand slams. “We established I am allergic to some food ingredients like gluten -- it means I can’t eat stuff like pizza, pastas and bread.”
No one loves sushi as much as Andy Murray does. Andy’s record is about 50 pieces of sushi in one sitting. And like Djokovic, Murray has adopted a gluten-free diet. “The diet has given me more energy. I miss being able to pick up a menu and order what I want, or to eat what I want -- like bread when you’re waiting for your food to come in a restaurant. It can be quite frustrating when everyone else is dunking their bread in olive oil or smearing it with butter. It’s also a bit of pain not being able to eat a regular yogurt, but it’s been worth it."