Tennis great Todd Woodbridge suffered a shock heart attack aged 51 last week - and is now pleading with people to get their own health checks.
Former Australian doubles star Woodbridge remains active in retirement, regularly exercising and eating healthily. But the tennis commentator has revealed his shock after the incident that he has described as a 'wake-up call'.
Woodbridge, who won nine doubles titles at Wimbledon during a distinguished playing career, experienced severe chest pains in an episode that has been described as a 'mild heart-attack'. The incident has prompted Woodbridge to raise awareness after he became the latest high profile ex-athlete to suffer a heart attack.
“I tried to keep my routine having travelled to the US Open and London and I was just exercising and had chest pains and every symptom when you look up Google – full sweats and I felt awful,” Woodbridge told the Herald .
“I had a little heart episode that goes down as a mild heart attack which is a bit of a shock to me. And you’re personally still coming to terms with somebody like myself, who I consider to lead a pretty good, fit, healthy lifestyle – I keep active, I eat well, I do all the right things, I enjoy doing that.
“It’s been a wake-up call to me to make sure I look after myself. If it can happen to me it shows that it can happen to anybody.”
Cricket icon Shane Warne was a year older than Woodbridge when he suffered his fatal heart attack in March. And former AFL player Dean Wallis, another Aussie sports star, survived a major heart attack just days later after receiving life-saving surgery.
Woodbridge feels lucky that he has the ability to get regular health checks after his scare, and has urged others to do the same to avoid putting themselves at future risk.
“I’ve hit that age now where I need to make sure that I have regular testing, get to the doctors,” he added. “I’ve been fortunate enough to go and get all the tests and I’m OK. With good monitoring and a bit of mild medication moving forward, I’ll be fine.
“But what I did learn was how important hereditary genes are to your health and I am aware that both my mum and dad have had a few issues with needing some stents and my dad had very high cholesterol.
“If I take care of that I have the ability to be fine into the future. But if you don’t take care of that, you are putting yourself at risk.”
