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Tennis ticker: Suma Ito gets the all-clear to leave Dunedin Hospital on Saturday – six hours after collapsing with full-body cramps
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A gutsy Queenstown tennis player collapsed and was rushed to hospital in agony minutes after helping her team win a major title.
Suma Ito was helped to the changing rooms by two team mates, suffering severe body cramps and vomiting during blistering heat in Dunedin last Saturday afternoon.
When her symptoms worsened, an ambulance was called and a six-hour stay in Dunedin Hospital followed.
Ito, speaking later to Mountain Scene from her hospital bed on a recovery drip, says once her legs started cramping during a crucial singles match she could barely move.
“I was like a penguin.”
The cramps began when she was leading 6-2 3-0 during a must-win game against South Canterbury’s Courtney O’Callaghan.
A win for Ito’s Southern Lakes A – comprising Queenstown and Wanaka players – would avoid a tie and they would win overall by seven matches to five.
Ito gritted her teeth to keep playing, getting leg massages at the change of ends and somehow breaking serve to go up 4-0.
Ito says she couldn’t serve with any power and just did soft “lolly-pop” serves, which her opponent fired out of court to give Ito a 5-0 lead – one game from winning the match.
“I had more massages on both my legs but couldn’t actually move.”
Incredibly, Callaghan double-faulted twice and then blew an easy smash out of court to give Ito two match points at 15-40.
Ito calmly hit an unreturnable drop shot off the next serve to win.
Minutes later in the changing room she collapsed in agony, calling for an ambulance.
Her whole body – back, legs, stomach and even mouth – was cramping, she says. On top of that, she started vomiting.
“It was very painful. I was almost crying.”
An ambulance arrived and carted Ito to hospital at about 4pm.
She was unable to play the following day but her team – having downed Otago 8-4 earlier – went on to beat Southland 8-4 and claim the trophy.
Southern Lakes B beat North Otago and South Canterbury B to make the final against Otago B. It was tied up at six matches all, but Lakes lost on a count-back of sets by 14 to 13.
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