Tennis for Life: How to keep playing into your 70s and beyond

This guide is written by Sydney Adventist Hospital Orthopaedic Surgeon Dr Marcus Chia, specialising in Shoulder and Elbow Surgery

If you want one good reason to keep turning up to the courts, here it is. When researchers in Copenhagen followed thousands of people over several decades, the sport associated with the longest gain in life expectancy wasn’t running, cycling or swimming; it was tennis. The effect was striking, and much of it was put down to something every club member already knows: tennis is social. You show up, you laugh, you compete, you stay connected. That combination of movement and company turns out to be very good medicine.

So, the goal isn’t to wrap yourself in cotton wool as the years go by. Instead, it’s to look after the few joints that do the hard work—chiefly your shoulders—so you can keep playing the game you love for as long as possible.

What actually changes as we age

There's no point pretending nothing changes. From our 40s, tendons gradually lose elasticity and blood supply, muscle mass declines, and joint cartilage thins. In the shoulder, the rotator cuff—the tendons that let you serve, reach, and lift—is especially prone to wear over time.

Here’s the reassuring part: Much of this is normal, and much is preventable. The biggest predictor of joint health at 70 isn’t luck or genetics, it’s how active and strong you’ve stayed over the years. The body follows a ‘use it or lose it’ principle at any age.

How to keep playing

A few habits make an enormous difference, and none of them requires a gym membership or a sports science degree.

• Get strong and stay strong. Muscle weakness with age can be reversed with resistance training. Two short sessions weekly, focusing on legs, grip, and, for tennis, the small stabilising muscles around the shoulder blade and rotator cuff, protect better than any brace or supplement.

• Warm up properly. Do five minutes of gentle movement. Hit a few easy rallies. Let tendons wake up. Save stretching for after you play, not before.

• Respect the load. Most niggles I see aren’t from doing too much. They’re from doing too much, too soon. If you’ve had a few weeks off, ease back in rather than jumping straight into five hard sets. Tendons adapt, but slowly.

• Let your gear help you. A racquet that’s too heavy, a grip that’s too large or small, or stiff strings all add strain to the elbow and shoulder. A lighter racquet and a grip size check reduce stress on an ageing arm.

• Recover like it matters, because it does. Sleep, rest days, and sensibly spaced matches matter more as we get older. Players who last into their 70s are usually those who listen to their bodies.

So how can you tell if pain is just a niggle, or something worth checking?

Aches and stiffness are part of the game. Most resolve on their own with patience and the above habits. You don’t need a specialist for every twinge.

That said, a few signs are worth taking seriously, because they tend to point to something that does better when it’s looked at early rather than left:

• Pain - that wakes you at night, particularly when you lie on that shoulder; or pain that simply isn’t settling after a few weeks of sensible rest and rehab.

• Weakness - your arm tires quickly, your serve loses its power, or you struggle to lift or hold the arm up.

• Loss of movement - you can’t reach overhead or behind your back the way you used to.

• Mechanical symptoms - catching, locking or a feeling that the joint might give way.

None of these means disaster. But they mark the line between a passing niggle and a problem worth assessing. When something genuinely is wrong, results are almost always better when it’s caught early.

You don’t have to give up the game

The best news is how much can be done now, even for wear-and-tear issues we once accepted. Many shoulder complaints resolve with the right exercises and some guidance. For those who need more, rotator cuff repair or shoulder replacement can help. Surgery and recovery have advanced significantly. It's now common to see people return to the court, serving and enjoying tennis after issues that once ended play.

So, keep playing, stay strong, warm up, look after your shoulders, and don’t ignore the warning signs. Do that, and there’s every reason to expect many more good years on the court ahead.