Álex Ruiz's fight against diabetes in the elite of paddle tennis: "I have a constant lack of control"

“I have a constant lack of control”. Álex Ruiz (Málaga, 1994) is one of the best paddle tennis players in the world, partnering with the Argentine Juan Tello and, at the same time, he has been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes since he was ten years old, a chronic disease that raises glucose levels in the blood and forces an injection of insulin to keep sugar at bay. Sleeping and eating well affects blood glucose a lot,” he summed up in a chat with EL MUNDO, admitting that “it is a very tense situation.”. The stress of the sport, especially of a paddle tennis in which many points are decided in the famous golden points to break the games, does not help either. On the contrary. “Pressure and tension affect me a lot.. destabilizes me. I also suffer a lot from time and weather changes.”

Do you remember any game in which it affected you a lot? Something happens to me in all of them. It is difficult because of the issue of sugar, that you run out of strength. And then at the end of the games, due to the tension and the nerves, my blood sugar shoots up.. Always. Let's say that from 250 milligrams of blood glucose per deciliter in blood, the doctors recommend that you not do any type of activity because it can be dangerous, and at the end of the games I am usually at 300. I try to control it and adapt.

The solution? Insulin. But this one is also changeable. “The body changes all the time and I have tools to solve it, but for example a dose of insulin that used to work for me may not work well for me now. There is no pattern that you can establish and follow in your day to day because it is a constant change”.

When he was diagnosed with the disease, Ruiz was told that he would not be able to dedicate himself to any sport. A stigma that still prevails today and that has made it a benchmark for young people suffering from diabetes.. “More pressure”, jokes the Adidas athlete, who has just presented his new Adipower Multiweight Ctrl shovel. “The children have the same doubts as me and I try to help them. I can tell you that I dedicate myself to what I like and being able to reflect that in society makes me proud.. I don't have perfect diabetes because that doesn't exist, but I do manage it as well as possible. Each diabetes is a world and maybe things that work for me are not good for another person,” he says.

The paddle tennis calendar, another problem

The world of paddle tennis lives immersed in the constant controversy between the circuits. Right now there are three: World Padel Tour, Premier Padel (led by Al-Khelaifi) and A1 Padel (owned by Fabrice Pastor). The exclusivity that WPT demands from its stars has been the trigger for the vast majority of discussions that have taken place in recent months. Meanwhile, A1 manages its own players, who do not play any of the other two tournaments, and Premier wants the best in its events, even if it costs thousands of euros in compensation. This generates a chaotic calendar that never stops and in which players cannot stop so as not to lose points or money.. While Premier and WPT negotiate, many of them have already been injured as a result of the pressure and effort. “The problem is that we have to play World Padel Tour yes or yes this year and we have to play Premier because it is the future. What we demand for the next few years is that we can play the tests we want, that it be like tennis, an average, not a sum like now”.

One of the stars, Juan Lebrón, number 1 until this year, has been injured for several weeks and his partner, Ale Galán, has had to find a new partner in his absence. “If you stop, you miss five tournaments. You can't, because the sponsors also demand you, you lose ranking points, which in the end is what matters most…”. Reflecting on the calendar is more than necessary: “The calendar is crazy. From Málaga, with the heat, we are going to Mendoza, with the winter cold. This is the body, and mine, being a diabetic, suffers a lot” , analyzes the Andalusian, who is asking for changes for next season: “There is no time to recover, to work on mistakes… There are many injuries, people who play every game with bandages…”.