Tennis’s shoddy treatment of diabetic Alexander Zverev is inexcusable

The German tennis star was told at the French Open to leave the court to inject insulin because it looked ‘weird’. This sends a terrible message, writes James Moore

Zverev added in his press conference that he was told it looks ‘weird’ if he injects himself on the court – and that’s when I really blew a gasket (AFP via Getty Images)

It is quite rare to come across a story that genuinely leaves me lost for words. At least at first. I have disabilities, some gifted to me by a wonky immune system (that would be type 1 diabetes), some by a large truck which ran me down. Being disabled immunises you to an awful lot of stupid.

Then the French Open tennis championship came along to prove that, yes, I can still be made to splutter hot espresso coffee all over my workspace.

Perhaps I should explain: Germany’s Alexander Zverev has played his way into the semi-finals at Roland Garros but it isn’t just his opponents he’s had to overcome.

Zverev has type 1 diabetes. T1 is an incurable autoimmune condition. Those of us with it have it for life. It cannot not be cured or put into remission by a diet of soups’n’shakes, which is currently the big noise in the land of Type 2. You either have to inject insulin or have it delivered via a pump. If you can get one on the NHS, that is. But that’s a whole other story.

I’ve had it since the age of two, which is just about the only way I’m ever going to beat Zverev at anything. He was diagnosed aged three.

Managing volatile blood sugar levels in one’s everyday life is complex enough, let alone doing it while playing elite sport. But the real difficulty for Zverev appears to have been created not by the condition but by the tournament’s officials.

Here’s what he told German Eurosport: “On the ATP Tour I do [inject insulin] on the court. Here they don’t allow me to do it. I’m not allowed to do it on the court and I have to run out every time.

“Then at the last match I was told that it counts as a toilet break. That’s when I said, ‘guys, I might have to walk off the court four or five times. Decide what you want me to do’.”

Players only get two toilet breaks. So you can see the problem.

Zverev said that in a previous match, against Frances Tiafoe, there was a “supervisor who didn’t know that I was diabetic”.

“I then gave myself an injection and he panicked and said I had to call a doctor if I gave myself anything.”

Just reading that twice puts me at risk of a concussion from banging my head against the wall. People with diabetes of whatever type - and there are several with varying degrees of rarity – regularly have to cope with stigma exacerbated, I regret to say, by the sometimes ignorant work by some of my media colleagues.

But this is of a different league. Doctors are great, but believe you me, the person best equipped to deliver T1 insulin injections is the person with T1.

While in hospital recovering from that close encounter with a truck, I twice had to call upon diabetic specialist nurses to ram that point home so I could take back control (sorry) of my condition, which was deteriorating rapidly with blood sugars of more than twice the upper limit of the range specialists like you to stay within.

Even that wasn’t the worst of it. Zverev added in his press conference that he was told it looks “weird” if he injects himself on the court.

What does that say to other people with T1? To kids with immune systems as overactive as mine? To pregnant women with gestational diabetes? To T2s like my friend whose condition has progressed to the extend that they are also on insulin?

I spent years wandering around trying to find places to “shoot up” where people wouldn’t see me when I was out and about, partly out of the fear that idiots would think I was actually shooting up. Trainspotting style (although, I should add, my needles just pierce the skin, as opposed to spearing a vein). I’ve also heard people saying “ewww” when I deliver the hormone my body lacks. This is not all that unusual. Big strong men sometimes turn into helpless little babies when confronted by a couple of millimetres of needle.

Clearly I’m not alone in having to deal with this nonsense. Here’s Diabetes UK: “We hear time and time again from people with diabetes who are shamed for injecting in public or feel really worried about doing so because of fear of people’s reactions. We hope the French Open will change its stance.”

Quite. Those people who go “ewww”, dimwits one and all, are validated by the behaviour Zverev says he encountered, behaviour which displays stupidity even the Jackass crew would baulk at. Except that Jackass is sometimes uproariously funny. This is anything but.

Telling someone that injecting insulin looks “odd” is Olympic level ugly. If Zverev’s story is even half true, it is a double fault on the part of the officials who should be shown the door in the time it takes him to return a poorly delivered second serve from his opponent in the semis.