Alexander Zverev revealed that in school he was “bullied a little bit” for being diabetic but opening up about the disease helped him feel better about his situation. On August 6th, 25-year-old Zverev went public about his Type 1 diabetes diagnosis.
Also, Zverev used the moment to announce that he was launching a foundation to support diabetic children. “Oh, it feels amazing. It feels like you know, a stone coming off my shoulders in a way, because in school I was maybe bullied a little bit for it,” Zverev said on the ATP Tennis Radio Podcast, per Yard Barker.
Zverev wants to help diabetic children across the world
Zverev, the top-ranked German male tennis player, grew up in a well-established country. Zverev admitted that he was lucky in that aspect but noted that some diabetic children don’t have the same benefit of growing up in a well-established country like Germany.
Because of that, Zverev’s ultimate goal is to help diabetic children across the world get the proper treatment for their disease. “It’s to help kids and adults and people, all the world over the world. Diabetes. I think that is an illness that is not talked about a lot because I think in countries like Germany, like the US, like other rich countries, I would say you can live with it quite a normal life.
But that is, that is not always the case. Not everywhere else in the world because a lot of places, like a lot of places in Africa, a lot of places in, in Asia, as. Some places South America, the medicine is not always there because, the country is not as well run as probably maybe Germany or the US or Britain or France or, you know, those kind of countries.
And the second part is also I think, you know, when you get this illness at a young age, you get a lot of doubt in you and people give you a lot of doubt because I’ve always had doctors telling me, with an illness like that you will never be a professional athlete, especially not in a physical sport like tennis and I want to make sure that the message is out there that you really can and that you should never put limits on yourself just because you have an illness like that,” Zverev explained.
