Tennis ace Manders vows to return after road accident

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National team tennis captain Gavin Manders faces a battle to regain fitness ahead of next summer’s Davis Cup and Island Games commitments following a road accident.

The Island’s top men’s player is recovering from multiple injuries he suffered in a two-vehicle crash last Friday afternoon near Five Star Island in Southampton.

Manders lost half of his baby toe and fractured another toe on his left foot and also damaged ligaments in his right shoulder.

He was taken to hospital by ambulance where he received treatment before being discharged later the same day.

The past Male Athlete of the Year said he feared his tennis career could be over after losing a part of a limb.

“I was thinking will I still be able to run or play and no one really had the answer at the beginning,” Manders told The Royal Gazette yesterday.

“I just started thinking about my career; what I hadn’t done and what I could do. A lot of things were running through my mind and by the time I got to the hospital they had my toe in a bucket with ice.”

Manders, 26, has vowed to recover from his injuries ahead of the upcoming Davis Cup and Island Games.

“This is only going to make me stronger and appreciate things a bit more,” he said. “It’s definitely not the best thing especially at this time with the Island Games and Davis Cup coming up next summer. But I’m going to make sure I heal up properly and use this to get motivated.”

As well as playing tennis, Manders coaches youngsters for local charity Temple of Tennis which is based at Port Royal Golf Course.

Temple of Tennis director Sammy Maybury said he confident the top player will “bounce back” from his ordeal.

“Gavin is resilient and he normally rises out of the ashes to accomplish what he’s accomplished when you look at the history of his achievements,” he said. “So I’m looking at him bouncing back and learning a new way to balance himself from the perspective that he will lose a little bit of his balance.

“Speaking with Jensen Bascome, who is a physical therapist at King Edward Memorial Hospital and an executive of our organisation, he had a look at it (Manders’ foot) himself and he informed Gavin that he should be okay with the kind of therapy he will make available to him.”

Manders added: “It’s going to probably throw my balance off a little bit. But because it’s the pinky toe it shouldn’t affect me that much.

“I have to come out of this with a positive attitude rather than a negative one because it could’ve been so much worse.”

Just hours after being involved in an accident Manders turned up at the Temple of Tennis to meet with youth players he is currently working with.

“I met with the junior players the day after the accident to let them know the situation,” he said. “But that probably wasn’t the smartest idea because after that I was in serious pain from moving around.

“Obviously I’m going to have to take some rest initially. But this is not going to stop me from being involved and I don’t really see it affecting me from helping out.”

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