Wimbledon finalist Alexander Zverev is using his tennis success to raise diabetes awareness

LONDON (AP) — Alexander Zverev has more than just defending champion Jannik Sinner to deal with on Sunday in the Wimbledon final.

The 29-year-old German also has Type 1 diabetes, which requires him to monitor his glucose levels and, if needed, inject insulin during matches.

Zverev, who won the French Open and is seeking back-to-back Grand Slam titles, uses an insulin pen when needed to jab the top of his thigh during changeovers on court.

Here's some more information about Zverev and the disease.

Zverev disclosed in 2022 that he has Type 1 diabetes, having been diagnosed at age 4, according to his diabetes foundation. He had previously kept it quiet. If he needed an insulin jab during a match, he'd do it privately during bathroom breaks.

The announcement coincided with him launching his foundation, to help children in particular.

“If we as a foundation, and me just as a tennis player and somebody who has diabetes, can help even just a single kid or a single parent, I’ll be the happiest person in the world,” Zverev said after an early-round victory at Wimbledon. “There’s a lot of great athletes, there’s a lot of actors, musicians, who have diabetes. It shows that with diabetes there shouldn’t be any limits.”

At a Wimbledon warmup event in Halle, Germany, Zverev said his glucose sensor gave him an incorrect reading at his semifinal match against Taylor Fritz. Because it showed falsely high levels, he accidentally injected too much insulin.

When he figured out the problem, Zverev consumed 350 grams of sugar through glucose gels in the first hour of the match to normalize his blood sugar levels. He reported feeling “awful" and lost the match in three sets.

“The company’s investigating it, looking into it,” he said at a pre-Wimbledon press conference, referring to the firm that makes the sensor. “I’ve been using it for 10-plus years. This is the first time ever it happened."

The sensors are life changing, he noted.

“Those things are still very, very useful for a diabetic, make the life of a diabetic much easier than without them,” he added. “It was very unfortunate for me that it happened, but I think as a product, it still is very helpful for millions of diabetes patients.”

Zverev has permission from Grand Slam tournaments, the All England Club confirmed, to use his phone during matches to check his glucose levels. His sensor relays readings to the phone so that Zverev doesn't need to do finger-prick blood tests. Otherwise, phones are not allowed on court.

NHL Hall of Famer Bobby Clarke played his whole career with Type 1 diabetes, and current NHL player Max Domi also has the chronic disease.

Baltimore Ravens tight end Mark Andrews, diagnosed in childhood, frequently checks his blood sugar levels during games.

Former NFL quarterback Jay Cutler was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in his mid-20s, as was Olympic champion swimmer Gary Hall Jr.

Advocates say visibility is important, and not just in sports.

A year ago, Mattel introduced its first Barbie representing a person with Type 1 diabetes. She wears a continuous glucose monitor — to track blood sugar levels — on her arm while holding a phone displaying an accompanying app.

It was once called “juvenile diabetes” because it most often occurs in children and teenagers. An estimated 9.2 million people have Type 1 diabetes, according to the International Diabetes Federation.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that with the disease, “your pancreas doesn’t make insulin or makes very little insulin. Insulin helps blood sugar enter the cells in your body for use as energy. Without insulin, blood sugar can’t get into cells and builds up in the bloodstream.” Insulin shots are required to manage the blood sugar levels.

AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis

Alexander Zverev of Germany celebrates after winning the first set against Jannik Sinner of Italy during the men's singles final at Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Sunday, July 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

Alexander Zverev of Germany prepares to inject himself with insulin during a changeover in the men's singles final match against Jannik Sinner of Italy, at Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Sunday, July 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

Alexander Zverev of Germany prepares to inject himself with insulin during a changeover in the men's singles final match against Jannik Sinner of Italy, at Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Sunday, July 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

Alexander Zverev of Germany injects himself with insulin during a changeover in the men's singles final match against Jannik Sinner of Italy, at Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Sunday, July 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

Alexander Zverev of Germany injects himself with insulin during a changeover in the men's singles final match against Jannik Sinner of Italy, at Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Sunday, July 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

Alexander Zverev of Germany returns the ball to Taylor Fritz of the United States in their quarter-final men's singles match at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Wednesday, July 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

Alexander Zverev of Germany reacts after a point against Arthur Fery of Britain in their men's singles semifinal match at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Friday, July 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

Alexander Zverev of Germany celebrates winning against Taylor Fritz of the United States in their quarter-final men's singles match at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Wednesday, July 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 22, 2026--

Blair Health, a clinical infrastructure company that enables generalist healthcare providers to deliver specialist-level care, has raised CAD $4.24 million in pre-seed financing, marking the company's first institutional round and bringing total capital raised to date to CAD $4.5 million. The oversubscribed round was co-led by Business Development Bank of Canada's (BDC) Thrive Venture Fund, Accelia Capital, and Ogaei, with participation from Ontario Centre of Innovation (OCI) through its Life Sciences Innovation Fund (LSIF), and angel investors.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260922407114/en/

Blair will use the funding to accelerate engineering and product development, expand its commercial presence across Canada and into the U.S., and invest in the clinical operations, provider network, team and infrastructure required to scale the business. This includes growing its employer channel in Canada, collaborating with public-sector health systems, and expanding its U.S. employer business.

“The fundamental problem in healthcare today is that the traditional model for delivering specialist care doesn’t scale,” said Madge Rumman, co-founder and CEO of Blair Health. “We’ve spent the last year proving that specialist knowledge can be encoded into technology without removing the clinician from care, and that the same architecture can be applied across specialties. The clinical infrastructure we are building enables specialist expertise to reach far more patients, particularly in areas of medicine where backlogs are greatest and subspecialists are scarce.”

A clinical model built to scale access to specialist care

Blair's clinical infrastructure is built with medical subspecialists, encoding their assessment logic, guideline-informed treatment protocols, escalation triggers, and follow-up pathways into software. That infrastructure enables Blair's in-house nurse practitioners and family physicians to deliver specialist-level care, with subspecialists providing oversight and support for complex cases. It is also why patients can see a provider within days instead of waiting months or years for an appointment.

Blair is also built around what happens between appointments. Patients track their symptoms over time, and those trends feed back into the care plan so treatment is adjusted based on evidence. Each patient receives guidance personalized to their own assessments and clinical diagnoses, and can message their provider between visits.

“Expanding access to specialized care is a significant opportunity to improve outcomes for women while building innovative healthcare businesses,” said Roxanne Turcotte, SVP, Inclusive and Government Funds, BDC. “This investment reflects our fund's commitment to backing women-led companies with strong growth potential and BDC's mandate to help Canadian innovators scale and create lasting economic impact.”

From clinical validation to national scale

Blair proved its model in menopause, one of the largest specialist backlogs in Canadian healthcare, where women can wait up to two years for an appointment. The menopause pathway was built with Blair co-founder and Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Lindsay Shirreff, one of the few fellowship-trained menopause subspecialists practising in Canada, and was clinically validated against Blair's own clinical data set ahead of commercial launch in May 2025.

“The menopause pathway performs at 98.7% clinical accuracy, and we can train a provider to deliver it in under four hours,” adds Dr. Shirreff.

Blair also established that the architecture behind its clinical model extends across specialties. Working with leading specialists, the company has built new verticals in urology and pelvic health, led by urologist Dr. Sarah Peltz, and in clinical nutrition and weight management, led by Dr. Pooja Singhal, a board-certified gastroenterologist and obesity medicine physician. Each new vertical runs on the same technology stack.

Blair launched direct-to-consumer in May 2025 and has since grown to more than 2,300 users in Canada. Between 55 and 65 percent of steady-state visits are follow-ups, which reflects a longitudinal care model rather than one-off consultations.

Blair is available to women in every Canadian province, with French-language provider matching, and in six U.S. states, with more to come.

Employer pilots converting into annual workplace benefit contracts

In the U.S., employers are absorbing healthcare costs that rise every year without producing answers. Women cycle through appointments, referrals, and tests and still leave without a diagnosis or a treatment plan, and the employer pays for every step. When offered as a workplace benefit, Blair gives employees direct access to specialist-level assessment and treatment, so plan spend goes toward resolving a condition.

Blair piloted its employer offering in Canada with leading organizations across professional services, hospitality, and financial services, and those pilots have converted into recurring annual contracts. The employer channel went from close to zero a year ago to roughly half of Blair's revenue in the first half of 2026.

Fairmont Royal York introduced Blair to colleagues through an onsite education session before moving to a paid pilot. “Even employers with strong health and wellness programs can have gaps when it comes to supporting women’s health needs across different stages of life,” said Ian McLaren, Health & Wellness Manager at Fairmont Royal York. “Working with Blair Health has shown us how important it is to give colleagues timely access to specialist care and resources that meet those needs. When employees feel their health is understood and supported, it can have a meaningful impact on their wellbeing, confidence and how they experience work.”

“Women's health remains one of the largest underserved opportunities in healthcare, and Blair Health is tackling this gap with a fundamentally different approach,” said Catherine Poulin-Filion, Partner at Accelia Capital. “What stood out to us was the team's ability to rethink how care can be delivered rather than simply digitizing an existing model. Blair has paired a significant market need with a strong clinical foundation and a clear vision for building a new category of healthcare company.”

About Blair Health

Blair Health is a clinical infrastructure company building technology that scales specialist medical knowledge. Its proprietary clinical models encode specialist-designed assessments, clinical pathways, treatment protocols, guardrails and escalation rules into software that enables generalist healthcare providers to deliver specialist-level care with continuous clinical oversight. Blair currently provides specialist-designed care across menopause and perimenopause, urology and pelvic health, and clinical nutrition and weight management, across Canada and in a growing number of U.S. states. For more information, visit Blair Health online.

Blair was co-founded in December 2024 by Madge Rumman, Chief Executive Officer and Dr. Lindsay Shirreff, Chief Medical Officer