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4 Reasons Your Plantar Fasciitis Keeps Coming Back – An ATP Tour Physio Explains What Every Tennis Player Gets Wrong

By Dr. Jeff Chen | ATP Physio | Sports Medicine

• Last update: Feb 21 • 👁 340677 ⏱ 4 min

"I've tried every imaginable insole with minimal results."

"It crippled me for about a year."

"I had to crawl to the bathroom after playing tennis."

I hear this every week. And almost every time, the story is the same.

My name is Dr. Jeff Chen. I've spent 15 years working as a physio on the ATP Tour. But the patients I think about most aren't the professionals. They're recreational tennis players who've done everything right – and still can't get rid of their heel pain.

PT. Custom orthotics. Every insole on the market. Cortisone shots. Frozen water bottles. The tennis ball under the desk.

And the pain keeps coming back.

It's not their fault. They were just never told what's actually going wrong.

Reason #1: Plantar fasciitis in tennis players has a completely different cause than in runners

When patients describe crawling to the bathroom after tennis – not limping, crawling – I know exactly what I'm looking at. And I know the treatment they received was designed for a completely different problem.

Your plantar fascia is inflamed. But that's the symptom. Not the cause.

Running is forward motion. Tennis is stops, direction changes, explosive lateral movement. Every time you plant your foot to stop, it absorbs 3 to 4 times your body weight sideways. Your arch collapses inward. Your plantar fascia gets violently stretched.

Once? No problem. Thousands of repetitions over weeks of tennis?

Micro-tears. Inflammation. That knife in your heel every morning.

It's not your age. It's not too much tennis. It's a biomechanical mismatch between what tennis demands from your foot and what's inside your shoe. Until you fix that, nothing else will hold.

Reason #2: Custom orthotics and standard insoles are making it worse

You paid $400. Maybe $780. The specialist said they were the best available.

But custom orthotics are molded while you're standing still. They're rigid. Static. Built for forward motion.

Pull out your current insole. Press your thumb into the center. Completely flat? No resistance? That's what's been inside your shoe every time you played. After 2 to 3 weeks of tennis, most insoles collapse completely – and once they're flat, every stop sends that full impact straight through to your heel.

Rigid orthotics don't absorb anything either. They lock your foot in a fixed position and shut down the muscles that should be protecting your plantar fascia.

That's why so many patients tell me: "The orthotics only pressed. They made it worse." For tennis, they often do.

Reason #3: Physical therapy only helps temporarily – because the cause is still in your shoe

PT helps. Stretching, foam rolling, strengthening – the inflammation goes down. You feel better.

Then you step back on the court. Your foot collapses inward again on every stop. The micro-tears start again. Usually worse than before.

I've seen this cycle hundreds of times. 6, 8, 12 weeks of doing everything right. One weekend of tennis. Back to square one.

Most people conclude: "This is just part of getting older." But I've treated 60-year-olds playing five days a week with zero pain. Age isn't the problem. What's in your shoe is.

PT treats the fire while the match is still being struck inside your shoe.

Reason #4: Tennis-specific insoles fix the problem at the actual source

After years working with ATP players and recreational tennis players, I started recommending tennis-specific insoles before anything else.

Not soft foam. Not rigid orthotics. Something designed specifically for what tennis does to your foot.

The material needs to absorb lateral impact when you stop – and spring back immediately for the next movement. And it needs to stabilize your arch sideways, not just forward.

Do the thumb test again with the right insole. Press down. It compresses – and springs back. Every time. That's the difference between absorbing the force and passing it straight through to your heel.

Most of my patients are pain-free within 3 to 4 weeks. Not because the insole treats the inflammation. Because it removes the cause of it.

"These made a huge difference." "Saved the day." "I can keep playing the game I love."

I can explain the biomechanics. But I can't explain what it means to someone when tennis comes back.

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So why do I specifically recommend OnAce Insoles?

In my time on the ATP Tour and treating recreational players, I've tested more insoles than I can count. OnAce is the only one I've found that gets the tennis biomechanics right.

Not soft like foam. Not hard like orthotics. The material absorbs the lateral impact at the stop and springs back immediately – working with your muscles instead of shutting them down. Built specifically for the lateral stability tennis demands.

And the results? Players who had given up on pain-free tennis. Back on the court in 3 to 4 weeks.

Not because they found something new to try. Because we finally fixed the thing nobody had checked.

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