Conventional wisdom says the best way to improve your game is practice, practice, practice. But what if conventional wisdom was wrong? What if all it took was a little surgery? Hey, it worked for Simona Halep, a tennis player whose boob job is being credited with catapulting her from Romania to Wimbledon.
She's now ranked 58th in the world, thanks to the surgery that reduced the weight in her once 34DD chest. She's now a more comfortable 34C, and Halep can whip around the court at lightning speed. The 19-year-old proved it when she beat her Romanian opponent today.
To give her a little credit, Halep's surgery was a breast reduction, not only easing her swing, but reducing the painful back strain that plagues big-chested women across the world. Of the most popular plastic surgeries in the U.S., breast reductions rank fifth -- and most are done for the relief of pain rather than superficial reasons. She says she'd have had it done for the pain, even if she wasn't playing tennis.
And yet, it's clear Halep's tennis game has shown a marked improvement since she went under the knife. Nor is she the only player in the sports world to enjoy an on-court advantage from a medical procedure. Major League Baseball calls Tommy John surgery a pitcher's best friend, even though the ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction is technically performed to fix an injury.
First performed on leftie pitcher Thomas "Tommy" John in the '70s, doctors replaced the ligament in the elbow of his pitching arm with a tendon from his right forearm. They didn't expect he'd ever pitch again, but they hoped to at least give him back the use of his arm. Not only did he return to the mound, he had a 10-10 record his first year back. Pitchers who undergo the procedure typically perform as well, if not better, than they did before the surgery. Again, typically done for health's sake, but someone could walk in tomorrow and say, "Hey doc, can we talk about that Tommy John surgery?"
The fact is, with steroids, with "all new" workout equipment, athletes are pushing their bodies farther and farther every day, testing new limits. It's not really surprising that they'd turn to surgery to get that extra edge. But these people are already given so many gifts at birth. It seems a shame that they'd run the risk of going under the knife considering what can happen in surgery (death, anyone?) without a reason beyond improving their game.
What do you think? Is surgery just enough or skirting the boundaries for these athletes in their attempts to be the very best at their sport?
Image via meddygarnet/Flickr