CHENNAI: Both Carlos Alcaraz and Aryna Sabalenka, the top players in the men's and women's game today, had a run-in with the Australian Open organisers over WHOOP, a company focused on optimum human performance and health. A look at the fight that has also affected Jannik Sinner...
What's WHOOP?
In a couple of words, it's a standalone wearable. Unlike most of the smart watches dominating the market, WHOOP is dedicated to giving athletes a better understanding of their health, fitness and performance during matches. It tracks a lot of things including but not limited to recovery score, heart rate variability and strain. It also gives a personalised feedback on users' menstrual cycles. A lot of Indian athletes also wear WHOOP, the subscription-based device. Multiple-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu has been using it for at least a few years.
What's the issue at the Australian Open?
Alcaraz, Sinner and Sabalenka are free to use when playing tournaments outside the Grand Slams as the ATP and WTA allow them. But the Majors, for reasons best known to them, have not allowed them. Before Alcaraz and Sinner's last-16 matches, they were asked to remove those devices. WHOOP allows all of them to track their own health and performances indexes, something all elite athletes want to know on a daily basis as they constantly make small, small tweaks. Right now, the Majors have some kind of in-built tracking systems in play and they share with the players but it's not as comprehensive (kilometres run, change of direction, completed sprints and so on).
Why is it banned?
Tennis Australia confirmed that they are in ongoing talks to resolve the matter but there's no singular reason as to why it's banned. It's allowed in other tournaments because the Majors are the governing bodies only for the four Slams. One school of thought is that it may give players ranked inside the top-100 an advantage as they are more likely to use these products. They may also strike endorsement deals with these devices.