Sat, May 31, 2025 page6

• Players eye Alcaraz’s nasal strips

  • AP, PARIS
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  If more tennis players find themselves breathing easier, it might just be thanks to Carlos Alcaraz.

  The four-time Grand Slam champion, whose bid for a second consecutive French Open title was scheduled to continue with a third-round match last night, has often worn a nasal strip in matches since last season — although not during his first two contests at Roland-Garros this week — and the sport’s other athletes took note.

  After all, if Alcaraz finds something useful on the court, their thinking goes, maybe it makes sense to give the adhesive bands a shot.

  

  Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz reacts during his men’s singles match against Jannik Sinner of Italy at the Italian Open at the Foro Italico in Rome on May 18.

  Photo: AP

  “I saw Carlos playing in it,” said 18-year-old Mirra Andreeva, a semi-finalist in Paris last year and the No. 6 women’s seed this time. “I’d be pretty interested to try and see if there is really a difference. If he plays matches in it, then probably there is.”

  At the season-ending ATP Finals in November last year, Alcaraz said: “It is something that I’m going to wear more often. I could recover better between points.”

  Once associated with football Hall of Famer Jerry Rice and soccer stars such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar, the bands, which essentially look like a Band-Aid worn across the bridge of the nose, are popping up on tennis courts — sometimes out of necessity, sometimes out of curiosity.

  

  The Czech Republic’s Marketa Vondrousova reacts during her women’s singles match against Magdalena Frech of Poland at the French Open at Roland Garros in Paris on Thursday.

  Photo: EPA-EFE

  They are designed to open the nostrils slightly, making it easier to breathe through the nose. Originally marketed to reduce snoring, they are being embraced to enhance air intake during physical exertion.

  The idea is simple: Better breathing could mean better oxygen intake.

  In practice, the science is less convincing.

  

  Taiwan’s Joanna Garland returns to Yulia Putintseva of Kazakhstan during their women’s singles match at the French Open at the Roland-Garros Complex in Paris on Thursday.

  Photo: AFP

  In 2021, Brazilian academic Ricardo Dinardi reviewed more than 600 studies on nasal strips and found that they did not make a real difference in how much air athletes took in, their heart rate or how strenuous exercise felt.

  “The effect on athletic performance is mostly placebo, but in elite sports, even perceived benefits can count,” Dinardi said.

  Three-time major finalist Casper Ruud, who wore the strips in matches earlier this year, knows the evidence is shaky, but he still liked using them — on the court and while sleeping. Like Alcaraz, Ruud did not wear one in Paris before his second-round exit.

  However, he has been testing a prototype of a different version.

  “I tried out a device that’s very early in development. It will be a bit more comfortable to wear, because it’s inside the nose and it looks like I have this bullring under,” said Ruud, who was the runner-up at Roland-Garros to Rafael Nadal in 2022 and Novak Djokovic in 2023. “It will return, don’t worry.”

  For other players, like Nicolas Jarry, the strips are more than a trend — they are a necessity. After nasal surgery in 2020, the Chilean still needed help to draw air into his nose, so he puts them on for every practice and every match he plays.

  “Without it, I cannot breathe. My nostrils shut when I try,” he said, inhaling to demonstrate for a reporter. “Others don’t have that issue and still use them.”

  There are those, like last year’s US Open runner-up Jessica Pegula, who are tempted to try.

  “I have a horrible deviated septum. I can’t really breathe out of one side of my nose,” said Pegula, who is to play 2023 Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova in the third round today. “Maybe I should start wearing one.”

  However, the aesthetic aspect might be a deal-breaker, she added.

  “I don’t know if I have the confidence to rock one,” she said with a smile.

  On the courts, Taiwan’s hopes in the women’s singles ended with the defeat of Joanna Garland on Thursday.

  Kazakhstan’s Yulia Putintseva beat the 24-year-old, England-born Garland 7-6 (7/5), 6-3 in the second round at Stade Roland Garros.

  The Kaohsiung-raised player on Tuesday became the first Taiwanese to clinch a victory in a main singles draw of the French Open since 2020 after she outlasted the US’ Katie Volynets.

  The world No. 175 is Taiwan’s highest-ranked female player in singles.

  In the women’s doubles, Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia eliminated Greet Minnen of Belgium and Hungary’s Anna Bondar 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (7/3).

  Their win set up a second-round clash against the Czech Republic’s Anna Siskova and Kamilla Rakhimova of Russia.

  Additional reporting by staff writer
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