The ATP has announced collaborations with mental health organisations to help break down barriers and support players on tour.
In a statement yesterday, the ATP showed its support for mental health as they announced partnerships with two charities, Sporting Chance and Headspace.
Sporting Chance is a charity that will provide ATP Player members with the opportunity to contact a 24/7 helpline in which a group of therapists will help players with any mental health issues they are suffering from.
These issues include the psychological effects from not playing tennis due to the impacts of the coronavirus as well as any depressing or anxious feelings they are having in general.
While the other partnership, Headspace, will offer ATP Player members and employees free subscriptions to 1,200 plus hours of meditation and mindfulness content including sleep as well as mindful and movement exercises.
These announcements come after the world is celebrating Mental Health awareness week and ATP chairman Andrea Gaudenzi explained the purpose behind the initiatives, “Being mentally strong is just as important as physical strength in tennis and looking after the mental health of our players and staff is a key priority for us,” Gaudenzi said.
“Everyone has been adapting to periods of self-isolation and decreased physical activity during the pandemic, but this can have a particularly detrimental effect on professional athletes who are used to particular training structure and playing day in day out. We want to make sure we’re doing everything we can to support our players and staff during this time and I’m proud of the partnerships we’ve been able to announce in recent weeks and months which allow us to do this.”
Meanwhile the person behind one of the charities, Sporting Chance, is none other than former Arsenal captain Tony Adams and the former England international praised tennis’ initiative, “We are delighted to be working with the ATP in supporting their players at this difficult time,” Adams claimed.
“The challenges that all sports and sports professionals are experiencing in the light of this pandemic will be affecting all of us in different ways. I started Sporting Chance twenty years ago with the vision of creating a safe place for professional and elite athletes to discuss their emotional and mental health in confidence. Holding out our hand to those in need at this time is important to me and working with organisations like the ATP is a pleasure – well done Tennis!”
This is move is seen as a positive one as there are a lot of barriers involving sport and mental health at the moment especially during what is a difficult time for the world.
The ATP also announced that it is finding new ways for players to learn different skills during this time as they partnered up with Coursera which offers players 4,200 different courses in which they can learn new things while tennis is currently suspended.
