The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) has awarded a medical team from Aspetar – the orthopaedic and sports medicine hospital – with the 2017 Irving Glick Award of Excellence for providing the highest quality medical services to WTA athletes. The award recognises the contribution of physicians from Aspetar in supporting athletes at a number of major tournaments, including the Qatar Total Open.

Lisa Pataky, the WTA’s Primary Health Care Provider and Garbine Muguruza, the third-seeded Spanish tennis player, presented the award to Mr. Khalid Ali Al-Mawlawi, Chief Administrative Officer at Aspetar and Dr. Liesel Geertsema, a Sports Medicine Physician at Aspetar representing the medical team on the side-lines of the Qatar Total Open 2018 on February 16^th.

As part of its ongoing partnership with the Qatar Tennis Federation (QTF) and through its National Sports Medicine Programme (NSMP), Aspetar has provided a range of comprehensive medical services to all participating athletes during such tournaments. These include physical therapy and sports massages in addition to staffing ambulances and fully equipped clinics at the venue.

Aspetar organised on Wednesday, February 21, a separate ceremony to celebrate the hard work and continuous efforts that helped the team earn this prestigious award.

Aspetar’s support for international tennis tournaments is part of the hospital’s strategic partnership with the Qatar Tennis Federation and other sports federations and reflects its ongoing support for all major, international sports events hosted in Qatar. This ongoing partnership started in 2008, only a year after Aspetar was established in 2007.

Since then, Aspetar has delivered remarkable growth and progress in terms of the services it offers and the number of patients that come through its doors thanks to the hospital’s continued investments in the field of sports medicine, the quality of its team and world-leading facilities.

These have helped Aspetar lead the way in the Middle East in sports medicine. The hospital caters to the needs of the local community and the growing international community of athletes seeking world-class sports medicine, surgical and rehabilitation services in Qatar.

The Irving Glick Award of Excellence, or the Dr. Irving Glick award, is the WTA Sport Sciences and Medicine Department’s highest honour. The award is named after the WTA’s most recognised physician in honour of his outstanding contributions to the field of tennis and sports medicine for more than 20 years.

About Aspetar:

Aspetar is a world leading specialised orthopaedic and sports medicine hospital, and the first of its kind in the Middle East. Since 2007, with a world expert team, the hospital has provided top-level comprehensive medical treatment to all athletes in a state-of-the-art facility that sets new standards internationally.

In 2009, Aspetar was accredited as a “FIFA Medical Centre of Excellence”. In 2013, Aspetar was adopted as a reference collaborator centre by the Gulf Countries Council (GCC) Health Ministers Council and “IOC Research Centre for Prevention of Injury and Protection of Athlete Health” in 2014.

In 2015, Aspetar has been recognised as the “IHF Reference Centre for Athlete and Referee Health”. In the same year, the hospital also achieved the obtained on December 15 the Accreditation Canada International (ACI) “Platinum Level”.

Aspetar is a member–organisation of Aspire Zone Foundation, Qatar’s innovative sports and healthy lifestyle destination.