Patrick Zahraj How to treat diabetes: ‘There’s always a way’ | ATP Tour

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Patrick Zahraj on how to treat diabetes: ‘There’s always a way’

26-year-old German writes first-person article to help fans understand the challenges faced by people with diabetes playing professional tennis

January 4, 2026

When I was nine years old, my life completely changed.

I contracted a virus for a few weeks when I started drinking a lot of water as my body tried to remove excess sugar from my blood. I drink 10 to 12 liters of water a day, so logically I’m going to the bathroom every half hour to flush it away.

My parents thought I was just hydrating, which would be good for fighting the virus. But my symptoms got worse. One day in March 2009, I was competing in a tournament and couldn’t finish. When I got home that night, I threw up in front of the front door. I went to bed and started breathing heavily, wondering what was going on. A week later, I woke up in the hospital.

Without realizing it, my body was attacking my pancreas and killing cells. I would be awake and conscious for 10 seconds and then sleep for another hour. This happened all morning and I had no idea what was going on.

When I finally woke up, I realized: I was starving. I have never been so hungry in my life. Next to me was a newborn, his mother and the entire family. They had the most delicious meal ever: incredible sandwiches, jelly, bread and some of the best food we had in Germany. I remember just asking the nurse, ‘Hey, can I have one?’ and she said, ‘No, your blood sugar is still high. You have to wait a few more days. “

That was the first time I heard the word blood sugar. Soon after, I was told I had type 1 diabetes. I would stay in the hospital for about a month, and from that point on I began my journey to optimize life with this disease.

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Patrick Zahraj is a member of the German team competing in the Confederations Cup. ” style=”width:100%;” src=”

This week I’m playing in the Confederations Cup with the German team, which also has another type 1 diabetic: Alexander Zverev.

Sasha is a huge inspiration to me. He was two years older than me and my early contact with him as a child was very important, especially to my parents, who had several phone calls with his parents. Sasha was diagnosed with diabetes earlier than I was and has already experienced that it is possible to chase your dreams despite living with the disease.

Their family explained to us that with a few tips it was possible. This inspired me to pursue the path of becoming a professional tennis player and see that it was possible. For a young athlete like myself at the time, it was such a relief.

Once Sascha made it public in 2022, establishing the Alexander Zverev Foundation, it was a huge factor for the Type 1 community. There is still a lot of work to be done and we can inspire people and share our experiences to show the world that anything is possible. For children who are diagnosed, we want to be able to provide hope.

Despite this situation, I still became one of the top 250 players in the world. My father, Radek, is a professional player ranked 277th in the world. Growing up, I saw him play and compete, so chasing that dream was always in the back of my mind.

When I was hospitalized for a month, my father was coaching several pros, including Andre Begemann, a four-time ATP Tour doubles champion. They came to visit me in the hospital and we built a tennis net out of big Legos. It was so cool to see us all get together and play tennis in the hospital to pass the time since there was a lot of down time from boredom besides learning about the disease.

When I was diagnosed with diabetes, my first conversation with my doctor didn’t go well in terms of my tennis hopes. Overall, they don’t actually support tennis. Medical experts say the risk of severe hypoglycemia is high.

Some doctors couldn’t help us and some gave us some hope that we could compete. That’s a lot of bad attempts. There’s a lot that goes into being a professional tennis player, and doing it all while also thinking about glucose intake, figuring out which carbs work best and fastest for me, and worrying about my blood sugar.

I went on to play college tennis at UCLA, where I was a two-time All-Pac 12 honorable mention and a two-time ITA Scholar-Athlete. From that point on, I started playing professional tennis.

I have an insulin pump that has two attachment points behind my gluteus maximus. I have a sensor in my triceps and I need to switch my triceps every 10 days. I change the infusion site every two days and the insulin cartridge every four to five days.

While I focus on my game and strategy, I also have to consider my blood sugar monitoring and levels. If the connection between my sensor and my phone isn’t working properly, or there’s a technical error while I’m on the field, that’s a problem. All of a sudden, you go to the bench and see, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m not connected, so I don’t know what my sugar is doing right now’. I don’t know what the trends are and that might sway me.

Patrick Zahraj shows off some of the equipment he uses as a patient with type 1 diabetes. ” style=”width:100%;” src=”

I have a glucometer as a backup so I can manually check my blood sugar levels and decide what to eat and when. There’s always an extra layer.

We’re on the court, so we want to manage our bodies for optimal performance, but when our blood sugar is already high and we’re in the second set tiebreaker of a match, when you feel like you need more energy, you can’t eat at that time because your blood sugar is already high. You want to perform optimally, but you also have to keep your diabetes under control. It’s a juggling act.

Last year I faced Kyle Edmund at the ATP Challenger Tour on Nottingham grass. Depending on my level, I’ve had multiple manual injections to try and balance my numbers, but nothing has worked. I ended up overcompensating and all of a sudden I was stumbling to the side of the pitch. I almost passed out and I was given medical help to get me off the field.

I retired from competition and got on a plane to Basel the next morning, where my father picked me up and drove me three hours to Gstaad. I went from dealing with diabetic attacks on smooth grass to playing ATP Tour events on high-altitude clay courts, where I would compete in my first Tour-level main draw.

Living with diabetes requires a lot of attention, but after 17 years of having it, it has become the norm. I’ve learned so much over the years and I’m so glad I went through the process to get me to where I am now where I feel completely comfortable with this disease.

There are some positive aspects too. Diabetes helped me develop incredible discipline from an early age. By the age of nine, I was already counting all my insulin injections at school by myself, which really made me independent. Otherwise I would always need a nanny. Then there is the psychological element of accepting and quickly overcoming past events to find solutions. Things don’t always go our way. You may not know your schedule or have to deal with flight delays or jet lag. A lot of factors can affect your blood sugar – just like fighting a wave, you want to try your best to minimize it. Life is never a straight line.

But I hope people with diabetes reading this know that there is always a way. This may be different for everyone. For example, my body issues are different from Sasha’s body issues. But what I’ve discovered over the years of living with this disease is that there is always a way if you’re willing to put in the effort and reach out to people to learn. You can apply this lesson to your life, too, especially with the Type 1 community.

The more we share together, the more we can learn and optimize our disease together to live freely without constraints.

—As told to Andrew Eikenholz

Read more first person articles from my point of view