	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

U.S. OPEN

September 6, 1994

Brian Hainline

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

DR. HAINLINE: H-A-I-N-L-I-N-E and I'm the chief medical here and this is David Cooper to my right. C-O-O-P-E-R, and he's the chief internist here.

Q. Your first name is with an I or a Y?

DR. HAINLINE: With an I.

DR. COOPER: These are very tough questions.

DR. HAINLINE: I think everything can be summarized very briefly and that is Pete feels exhausted, he was examined, medically by myself and Dr. Cooper. There are really no other medical issues going on. He's perhaps a little dehydrated, but he doesn't have heat illness, he doesn't have a fever, he doesn't have any gastrointestinal distress, he has no other medical condition that we can detect and essentially, I think it's best summed up when he says it all that he just feels exhausted.

Q. Is it possible the medication he's been taking for his injury could have had any effect on his condition?

DR. HAINLINE: He's taking things such as an anti-inflammatory drugs that's very common medication and that should not have had any effect.

Q. Medically, he's been exhausted. It is not even that hot? From your medical point of view him being exhausted, it was not even that hot or dehydrated?

DR. HAINLINE: This is not a not related to cardiovascular fatigue --

PAGE: He said hot the weather.

DR. COOPER: Oh, I see. Basically it is a muscle fatigue that he has. It is not a heat-related illness. He is just, as Dr. Hainline said, he feels exhausted, an overwhelming sense of fatigue.

Q. Could the fact that he hasn't been playing matches -- professional competitive matches, have anything to do with that, that he's been out of commission?

DR. HAINLINE: I think that might have a lot to do with it.

Q. Did he let on that he'd been feeling this fatigue previous to today; did he just wake up and feel exhausted today?

DR. COOPER: He's had episodes of fatigue in other matches. Up to this point he's felt quite good and today it just basically hit him. And as I sometimes say, I basically feel like I hit a wall, and that is how many of the athletes describe the type of fatigue that they feel where they just can't get that extra umph to complete it.

Q. Jaime said he had not played a baseline player like him who could run him and wear him, do you-- maybe, is it a silly question, but the fact he had such an easy time of it in earlier matches, could that have had a reverse impact in that he hadn't built up any sort of-- I don't know what I'm saying-- but do you know what I'm trying to say?

DR. HAINLINE: In answer to the question that you don't know what you're saying -- It's very true, this is sort of bordering on medical and getting more into what coaches might describe, but if someone has not been playing since July, he's been keeping fit from the cardiovascular point of view, but it's much different when you're out playing a tough match and for anyone who has played, there are different types of exhaustion and he feels overwhelmingly, empty right now, and I think the interpretation of that might be a multifactorial, in essence, there are -- it may be that he's mentally drained, it might be that he's not used to that level of competition, and there's a difference between keeping fit riding a bike, and actually being out on a court for three hours and using leg muscles in a different way. So, I think there may be many elements to it, but the issue is that there's not one -- there's not a, you know, in quotes, "medical condition" right now.

Q. So if he didn't have any gastro problems, but he was doubled over a lot, was that muscles cramping from exhaustion?

DR. COOPER: He was having some muscle cramping and the biggest complaint now is some back stiffness but again, it's that same feeling of exhaustion and normally it could take a week or two for someone to really acclimate to different conditions, the heat conditions, so that you can play. And as you pointed out, he may have been better off if he had tougher matches where he was able to work his muscles more. But sometimes this just happens.

Q. Is this just a case of needing rest or do you have him on IVs or -- what kind of treatment are you giving him now?

DR. HAINLINE: Right now we're leaving him alone.

Q. Is this -- is any further investigation called for here in terms of, like mono or that general fatigue, you hear there's the announcement for fatigue --

DR. COOPER: This is not fatigue from Lime's disease on Epstein-Barr related illnesses. This is a player who hit a wall.

Q. What exactly did you do to examine him this afternoon?

DR. COOPER: We listened to his heart, lung, monitored his blood pressure in various positions which can change with fluid or dehydration, he's quite stable.

Q. Did either of you treat Jaime Yzaga, he also left not feeling well; do you know anything about that?

DR. COOPER: We saw him in the locker room and he's doing quite well.

Q. How long will it take for him to literally get back to normal, where he won't be having hit the wall and exhausted to the point of just emptiness?

DR. HAINLINE: I think right now we have to just give him his space and it's really -- like any aspect of clinical medicine or any aspect of common sense in life, we'll see how he feels tonight and we'll see how he feels tomorrow and he might be feeling ready to go back tomorrow, but that's something that you just monitor.

Q. What was his blood pressure?

DR. COOPER: It was normal.

Q. You mentioned he had other episodes of fatigue, were talking about this particular tournament?

DR. COOPER: No.

Q. Previous to this; over the summer?

DR. COOPER: Just when you ask someone has this ever happened to you before and we've taken care of him in the past, and you know that this can happen to a particular athlete and it did with him.

Q. Did one of you come on court or both of you come on court during the match?

DR. HAINLINE: We were not on court.

Q. Could you explain what the trainer's visit was about in the fourth set there? That was totally unrelated to fatigue, I presume, because he had his shoe off?

DR. HAINLINE: He's had a blister as you know which was some condition which was taken care of previously and--

Q. From a medical point of view, did Sampras do something stupid or did he handle it right during the match all the time?

DR. COOPER: During the match?

Q. During the match, yeah.

DR. COOPER: As physicians, we always like to -- we want to see you drinking more water and possibly taking a banana or something, but he really -- it's just, again, he hit that wall. He didn't do anything wrong.

Q. So you don't have an opinion as to whether or not he was properly hydrated before coming on to the court?

DR. HAINLINE: He was properly hydrated before coming on to the court. And when he felt fatigued, if you watched him during the changeovers, he probably wasn't drinking as much as we would like, but this was not a case of dehydration.

Q. Did he say at all when he began feeling this in the match, did he feel it from the beginning; was there a certain set when he started feeling it?

DR. HAINLINE: He mentioned that he was -- in the third set in particular.

Q. Given the fact he really hasn't had really tough matches and it wasn't that far into this match, it sort of indicates maybe it isn't really a physiological thing, can you clarify what you said about other factors; is there an element of anxiety, an element of emotional fatigue or what degree do you consider a physiologically- induced problem?

DR. COOPER: Just again, there is nothing cardiovascular wrong with him, there's no infectious component, there are many factors, that make a person fatigue. You listed a few of them, including mental anxiety-- we're not saying that he said that at all because he didn't, it's just there are a number of different factors that go into athletes' performance and whether or not it played a role tonight remains to be seen. We need to hear more from Pete as well.

Q. I realize you were not on court advising him, but do you think when a player is feeling what he's described to you he could continue on or should he have stepped out maybe before he finished?

DR. COOPER: Well, we get the trainers to ask them how they're doing. They can-- someone like Pete knows what his limits are and he certainly could step off if he wants, but there was no indication that he needed to do that.

Q. Is this the kind of wall that takes a while to recover from? If he had won, would he go on, like the next match?

DR. HAINLINE: Well, this is not the -- I mean, there are different walls perhaps. This is not the wall that a marathon runner has when their sugar has become depleted from their body, so the answer is that had he won, he should have been able to recover more quickly from this, assuming there are no other issues and at this point there don't seem to be any other issues.

Q. In your opinion, speaking in general terms, how frequently does something like this happen to a tennis player?

DR. COOPER: How frequently does Pete Sampras come along where he can run through matches quite readily and then have a tougher match. It's -- whether or not all that added up to how he presented today, it's just not clear and we just, you know, there's more information, we'd like to go back and re-evaluate him as soon as we're done.

Q. He's had matches where -- this is not the first time where he's had problems during a match. He played a match final earlier this year after taking an IV, for example, for some -- what was believed to be food poisoning, but no one seemed to be quite sure. He's had to pull out of other matches. Is it possible that any of these things are related?

DR. HAINLINE: Well, the match-- I believe you're speaking about the Lipton, and that was some sort of acute gastroenteritis, whether it was food poison or viral it isn't clear, but that's a whole separate issue.

Q. Can you say something about Yzaga, he's still in the tournament. Why did he leave the press room?

Q. He left here complaining he wasn't feeling well.

DR. COOPER: Again, we saw him in the locker room after he -- he seemed fine. There's no indication that he's going to need to withdraw or not go on.

Q. Dr. Hainline, how do you spell your first name; there's a number of ways to spell Brian?

DR. HAINLINE: B R I A N.

End of FastScripts....

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297